So... What's Uganda Like?

Written in June 2008 during my Amsterdam layover prior to my return to California.

I noticed this strange lizard. It was moving in the most awkward sort of way. It had a longer tail than any lizard I had ever seen before and its steps required great effort. We had just walked out of Invisible Children's microeconomic bracelet making site. As I was led to the dirt floor I would be sleeping on in the dangerous and impoverished IDP camp, the first thing I noticed was the lizard. As my head tilted to the side to observe its movements, my host, Santa, saw a friend of hers. She called over her friend to introduce me. Oblivious to the lizard, the newfound friend reached out her hand to shake mine and stepped directly on the creature. She didn't even flinch. I smiled, tried to make eye contact, but my gaze shifted to her feet. Did she know what was under her?

As we finished our brief greeting, the woman walked away, leaving the struggling lizard in her midst. Santa was leading me to her home, but I was concerned about the creature. It was then, upon closer observation, that I realized that the "lizard" was, in fact, a baby rat. As we walked away, the rat lay on its side... struggling to survive in an IDP camp. Rats and huts and thousands of people. All struggling to find a way to breathe in the camp.

While I sit peacfully on a vacation in Amsterdam, I consider the sacrifices Santa made for us that evening. Diligently, she crawled on the dirt floor to prepare dinner for our already plump bellies. At five months pregnant, Santa was one year and three children ahead of me in life. Then, as the men in her community came over to enjoy the dinner she had labored over, she politely sat in the dirt while they enjoyed the small hierarchy of resting on a wooden chair. Women cook. Then they sit on the dirt while the men eat their food in chairs. Then the women clean up the mess. And the men go to enjoy a Casava Liquor. Alcohol washing away the haunting holes that 22 years of war have created in their lives.

It's hard to fully understand the life that the Acholi lead. Santa drew me a warm bath and sent her 16 year old friend Palm out with me to the bathing section of the camp. Palm enegantly balanced the warm gallons of water on her head. Then, surrounded by huts, she asked me to begin to bathe. My nakedness in the crowded camp created a sensation of vulnerabiltiy that I had never known before. Of course, how naked can I be when the truth is that in a few short hours, I have the freedom and power to leave the camp? How can my spirit be broken by impoverty when I know that my wealth is always within my reach? How could I ever truly know how vulnerable, how tired these residents must be? They have no way out, and I will always have a way out. Nakedness can't be very shaming when you know you can cover up again soon.

The next morning, a man greeted us and began to speak to Santa in the Lwo language. She nodded, understandingly, and then handed the man a few thousand shillings. Enough to buy a few Cokes.

"Hello. Good morning," the man greeted us white guests in his Ugandan flavored English. "Last night a baby died. One week. We're holding the funeral today... Well... good bye."

For several minutes we sat silently in the room. I wished that I had brought my wallet to the camp instead of locking it "safely" in the intern house. But after a few minutes of silence, life had to return to the room. Babies die, but life in the camp must go on.

So, in that evening, when I saw life escape out of the baby rat, and as Santa crawled on the dirt ground, and as I sheltered my nakedness in the congested camp, a one week old baby lost its only chance. After nine months of carrying the child, a mother wept and a father found another hole in his life to try to fill again.

So, what's Uganda like? It's beautiful. But the injustices of the land will never leave my heart. How grateful I find myself today. Not only have my eyes seen this injustice, but I continue to be given the opportunities to help change these crimes.