protect the girl child

so im leaving for my rural homestay today and ill be gone for ten days...figured you all might want something to read between now and then since i wont have internet access during that time and wont be able to post anything.

the other day one of the USP girls was with her host sister and saw a sign that said "protect the girl child". she asked her sister what it meant and her sister proceeded to explain: apparently it is common thought here in africa that girls have difficulty with self control and self governance. they are therefore prone to 'forgetting' that they are supposed to remain chaste and will use their sexuality to seduce men in order to manipulate them and get what they want. thus, they must have people in their lives to protect them and to remind them of remaining chatste. i think that this hints that the burden of stopping sexually transmitted diseases is largely placed on women and their learning to control their promiscuity. of course coming from america i, and the other USP students, find this kind of thought outrageous. i am by no means a feminist but i do not believe that women are in any way inferior to men, especially not intellectually.

however, i am encouraged that my host family goes against the grain in regards to this common thought. my host father said that he made a decision when he was very young that he would never abuse his wife. he and edith seem to have a very healthy relationship (although marriage relationships do not look the way they do in the states). ive asked my siblings and cousins if this is true and they confirmed it saying that julius and edith are happily married (it seems rare that the women is content in the relationship). i have great respect for julius because he advocates for women in the community. his family is very progressive in this respect...both of his daughters are just as educated as his sons. he believes that women deserve respect and that they should respect themselves and learn to think for themselves. he feels that education is an important part of this process. educated women are much more independent and have high self esteem...and their status within the community goes up if they are educated. his niece claire was telling me that, as the head master of mukon high school, he strongly supports the girls. he encourages them to respect themselves by dressing modestly and will not tolerate boys "disturbing" girls. his daughters and nieces have clearly benefited from this attitude. judie (my sister), alice (the oldest sister in our family) and stella (my cousin who stays at our house most of the time) are some of the most confident ugandan women i have met. they have goals and dreams of their own and know how to speak their mind. claire told me that she will not marry someone who does not respect her. education of women decreases birth rates by delaying marriage and making women aware of family planning (ie: if you dont have the money to support 7 children....you shouldnt have 7 children!).

my brother brian (he is the oldest son in our family...about 20...very well educated and very much like his father) said that it is not enough to only educate women...men must be educated as well. they must be raised to believe that their women are valuable and deserving of respect. he told me that just because a woman is educated and does not want to have a lot of children, she does not have the authority to make that decision on her own...her husband will make it for her.

i hope that the the influence of men like julius and brian will encourage other men in the community to change their way of thinking. meanwhile, i am glad that there are men like them that will join with the women of uganda as they strive for equality in their communities.

imme rooms...we have this little building with two VERY tiny rooms for us imme kids to hang out in and do our homework since we dont have dorm rooms.

isaac working; me and ema; isaac and ema. i love these kids! they arent staying with us anymore because they had to start school but there dad stopped by yesterday and said he would bring them to visit on weekends.

this is at our house...our 500 chickens...not even kidding. they sell the eggs to pay for school fees and gas for the car. and the other picture is our courtyard...backyard...im not really sure what to call it

can you say squatty potty?

jack, mande (our house boy) and ema. all i know about mande is that he's from the west, he speaks a little luganda and no english but he is literate and hes about my age and his brother is a house boy at our neighbors house. im guessing he ended up as a house boy because his family didnt have money to pay school fees. here house help is kind of like foster care...poorer families will send their children to work for a good, wealthier family. parents can approach a wealthier family and say "i know you are good people and you could care for my child. will you let them work for you?".

pictures of mukon from the balcony of the best meals hotel restaurant. we go to best meals for lunch sometimes. i cant actually take pictures on the street in the city...people get really angry. so this is as close as i could get.

matoke steaming on the stove and matoke before it's been steamed. this is what we eat everyday for lunch and dinner. it takes a lot of work...peal the plantains, wrap in banana leaves, let it steam for a really long time and then mash it all up.

quotes from imme

boda driver to kyle: hello mzungu! why are you so large?!
apparently there are not many tall africans because people are frequently shocked at kyle's height...hes like 6'4"

Kyle: why are you whispering
Becca: because this is a normal tone of voice for everyone else!
becca is loud and shes pretty aware of this so one day when erin told her to quiet down she resorted to whispering

Todd: ive seen my fill of boob on this trip
todd and kyle live in a home with a lot of women...who walk around topless. modesty is gauged by different standards here...a girl can walk around the house with no shirt on and its not a problem but if you show any leg above the knee it's considered obscene.


Becca: what part of loose stool don't you understand?
becca took a laxative and then went to town with some of the other girls later that day...they got lost on the way back and there is no such thing as public restrooms here

Brooke: it sucks...there's no pizza...everyone has AID's...
brooke is our imme corrordinator. she was giving us an example of how you should NOT write a support letter...by making it sound like everything in your host country is terrible so people should send you lots of money

Erin: rafting canceled on account of circumcision
we had planned to go rafting this weekend but then found out we had to go see a circumcision (which i just found out was canceled as well actually).

Kyle: do ugandans have night vision?
the electricity goes out all the time...but our ugandan families have no trouble walking around in complete darkness...us mzungu's have to use flash lights.

Mama Ida: Kyle do you have a girlfriend?
Kyle: no.
Mama Ida: kyle are you born again?
how are those two connected? ...i have no idea

Caroline to Kyle: can my monkey sleep with you during the night?
both of them were looking on line trying to figure out how they could get a monkey to bring home with them

Todd: im not going to kill anyone...but people may die
todd conspiring to take over the world

Ugandan: where are you from?
Todd: pensylvania
Ugandan: is that in Israel?
Todd: no, america
Ugandan: o...because you look isralie
uganda used to be a britsh colony so people have only seen pictures of a white jesus...they dont know that jesus wasnt actually white. todd has blue eyes, curly blond hair and a beard so people think he looks like Jesus

challenges of third world development

so sorry its been so long since ive written. school has been crazy...this study abroad thing actually involves studying! one of my classes was canceled today so i have a precious amount of free time because i dont have anything due tomorrow. anyway...as i considered what to write i thought it would be appropriate to expand on some of things we all know to be true of africa. afican nations are largely considered part of the third world and a few of them qualify as developing nations. thus they bare the marks of poverty...disease; starvation; war; political instability; low education/literacy rates; lack of medical facilities, personnel and resources...and the list goes on. of course we all know the pictures on tv of the starving children dressed in dirty rags or wearing nothing at all. but being here in africa i have witnessed the reality of how difficult it is to correct these problems.

Ill start with jinja. a few weeks ago the imme group (the 12 of us in the intercultural ministry and missions emphasis) took a weekend trip to jinja. we met with a number of missionaries from the jinja area who work with the Basoga people (jinja is in the busoga district) and also to get a break from the strains of school and cultural transition. i dont really have a word to describe the weekend...i can explain it by saying that we were ripped from one reality to another very quickly. it would take up a lot of space to describe the whole weekend so ill keep it brief...on saturday we ate lunch at a cafe that catered to mzungu's....we were so exited to get american food! then immediately after lunch the missionaries took us to the hospital. this was the best medical facility in the busoga district...the best facility for about 2,000,000 people. i walked into ward four...the TB ward. at first i was frozen in the doorway. i saw a concrete room with metal beds and foam mattresses. thin lifelss bodies laid on the beds. it smelled of sickness. after i got over the initial shock i walked in a knelt down near a middle aged man named patrick. he said he had been there for weeks and recieved little attention. the hospital had run out of water the day before. i held his hand and looked into his watery eyes. i thought of all the things id heard about tb back home...how its such a terrible disease and highly contagious (highly contagious for those with a weak immune system). everything in me said that i should be afraid. that i shouldnt get too close. that i shouldnt touch him. that i shouldnt spend too much time in that room. and that broke my heart. these were the untouchables. their dignity had been stripped away because they had been labeled as such. but i knew that Jesus wouldnt be afraid of these people. he wasnt afraid to touch lepers. so i stayed...kneeling by his bed, my hand on his. contrary to what i had been taught, i wasnt the least bit afraid. in fact i wished that i could stay there all day. i cant descirbe what i felt while i was there. but i will say this: i saw only two nurses while i was there. often resources are scarce so only the sickest get treatment. there are not enought doctors to care for all the patients so the patients families have to stay at the hospital to care for them....the families sat outside, covering the lawn. ill leave out the rest of the trip for now so i can stick with the topic...

today my politics professor was explaining to us why the government here remains so corrupt. he said that even though the presidents have been terrible, the people are afraid to speak out. he said that nationalists are often thrown in prison and can stay there for two years, during which time they are tortured, until they get a trial. and that is if you actually make it to the trial date...many nationalist prisoners just 'disappear'. mesharch is a nationalist himself. but he says that he is afraid to speak out because if he is taken to prison there will be no one to support his family. "i am not ready to sacrifice myself. i fear for my family. perhaps when i am older [i will speak out against the government]...but there are things i want to do first [before i am imprisoned]".

today we also had a british missionary couple come speak to our class and discussed with us some of the difficulties of missionary work in uganda. ill just list some of the notes i took:
*the task of teaching and preaching is in the hands of the lay people. Pastors might have a certificate in theology, very few have a diploma and fewer still have a degree
*Translation into local languages might involve 2 people...a missionary and a local...translating from english, whereas english translations involved large numbers of scholars translating from the original greek and hebrew. Also, local languages are often limited in vocabulary (because they are generally oral languages and are not made into written languages until missionaries create a written form) making it difficult to translate the true message of scripture. Other complications arise when the language is tonal and no differences are evident in the written form. for example arre can mean either hand or head depending on the tone with which it is spoken. but in reading the written word no tone is indicated....so Christ could either be the head...or the hand...of the body.
*African culture is inherently spiritual...things do not just happen in africa...the are caused. but this creates problems in regard to personal responsibility. if everything is caused by external forces then people are unmotivated to be proactive. with malaria for example, people are not eager to use mosquito nets because if a person is destined to die of malaria they will die; if a person gets malaria they get it for a reason and a mosquito net will not prevent it. malaria is attributed as much to the direct work of satan as it is to mosquitoes.
*there is a shortage of doctors in africa. those being trained want to work in areas where they can be paid (large cities or outside of africa). rural areas cannot afford doctors so they go without. it is difficult to recruit local doctors because they want to capitalize on their education and are not willing to work in poor areas for little pay (30,000 shillings a month...about 19 us dollars). expatriate doctors can provide a quick fix but are not a sustainable solution.
*african churches, agencies and organizations are in desperate need of funds. but where will those funds come from? and how does one determine how to allocate them? western money is only a temporary solution...the ungandan church must be able to sustain their own ministry. but when you only make 30,000 shillings a month it is difficult to tithe 3,000 of that. and when you have limited funds you must choose between educating your pastors or investing in medical care.

as i listened to the missionaries and thought about what i had witnessed in jija i was overwhelmed at the complexity of the need in africa. these issues are the ones that mission agencies and development organizations are faced with...they are huge problems to which there is no easy solution. hearing about these struggles while i am in africa was a big reality check about the challenges of development work. maybe if you arent planning to be a development worker then these things dont phase you, but for me it was like a slap in the face. ok...this is super long so ill write more later...hopefully soon :)