Africa Journal #10: Letter to the thief

Africa Journal #10: Letter to the thief

Sir,

I want to share a grievance with you. On March 24th, 2012 at approximately 5:00 PM in Mengo, Kampala, Uganda, you stole a 15” MacBook Pro from me. Please forgive the drama and the formality, but this computer was actually quite dear to me. Upon the sale of my motorcycle, my Apple computer rose to a) being my most integral worldly possession and b) my most valuable world possession. Granted it was over four years old and not as sprite as it once was, but it was a phenomenal computer and I had spent a lot of time on those beautiful silver backlit keys. It is always embarrassing to be sentimental about an object, especially when the item is, by design, cold and utilitarian, but in some ways I loved it.

You see, sir, these past four years my life has endured many changes and that computer was the peripheral to the world that allowed me to journal the feelings, fears, and hopes accompanying those changes. There are over 300 pages of journals and poetry (and even more of research) on its hard drive. Unless you’re a voyeur of a certain kind, none of these deeply personal musing will mean anything to you, but they mean a lot to me. If it is possible to “bleed on the pages” of a personal memoir or lament, then I have done as close a thing on the pages of my journal documents on my hard drive. In its absence I see the many ways my computer was a connection to my life. This is, of course, not without its sadness since it is arguable that a majority of my social interaction is via a relatively small laptop screen. But like you, I am a product and participant of/in my society. The loss of a computer that is the mainstay device of one’s life is actually an acute loss to one’s ability to function in modern life. I do not mean to patronize you as I explain what this loss means to me. You may be very well aware of what you took and the meaning it may have; I do not know. To be honest, I wish you’d just robbed me. I could have just given you the money. Yes, it could have been that I would have hurt you severely, but you should have taken the chance because it would have been one for one and I’ve been through worse here in Africa. But no, you just walked into a home when someone was in the back room washing clothes and took one small nondescript item: my macbook pro.

To be honest, and here you will learn the most about me, the worst thing that you did is destroy my belief that my deep sadness and anger were valid emotions. But how could they be? Granted, it seems reasonable to lament the loss of something dear to you (no matter the reason) all things being equal. But that’s just it. My computer was not stolen in the United States where it is incredibly common to have an expensive Apple laptop. It was stolen in a country in which I find myself in the top 1%, in a world that I am already in the 1%. Sure it is sad to lose a laptop (and I’m much more than sad), but “sad” barely describes that average Ugandan’s lot in life. What you have done is, in absolute terms, “wrong”, but when I see the world that you live in and the multitude and nefarious reasons you were born into poverty that is almost nonexistent in the country I’m from, I can say that the baseline for your entire life is “wrong.” Forces outside of each of our control placed my life as a white, educated, male in the West and your life as (likely) a black, uneducated, male in the Global South/Majority World. Purely numbers wise, it was for more likely for a person to end up in your shoes than mine. But it is highly unlikely that you are poor because of anything besides of where you were born. The chances of you having a college degree, world-travel, protection from a largely functioning justice system, and access to decent health care are almost nil. I’ve had access to almost all of those my entire life. It is not “fair” that I should have those things and you should not. What is more, I know that I could not have much of what I have without the exploitation of people in your socioeconomic class and the exploitation of your forefathers. The affluence of the West is partially built on the exploitation of people who, because of where they were born, do not have recourse. I am keenly aware of this as I easily move throughout your society with the grease that is my inherent relative affluence. I know that if I get in trouble here my country will advocate for me and levy its unparalleled influence on my behalf. I know that if I need money, there is a host of affluent friends who can wire me money in moments. I am aware of all these things. I have seen with wide-open eyes what devastating poverty can do to a person, to a society, and especially to notions of volition. I have lost the ability to judge a woman who prostitutes herself to feed her children. I have wrestled with every ethical system there is and I have my opinions on many of them, but the ethic that is sacrificial love like that I cannot categorize. Devastating poverty is a force that is unrelenting in its life-taking ability. I do not know you, but I am willing to bet you know more about it than I ever can or will.

I do not know why you took my computer. Obviously there are obvious reasons such as “money” but we all make money for different reasons, some more noble than others. Perhaps the 500,000 shillings or so you’ll likely make from the sale of my computer will be used to buy cheap banana beer or even marijuana. Maybe it will just allow you to live for a little while in a place where 500k goes a long way. But maybe you have a daughter who is HIV+. It is not statistically likely, but I would not be shocked. The HIV rate is easily 20 times higher here than in the United States; probably 100 times higher. That’s not because your society is more immoral than my own, but because of the debilitating and compounding effects of poverty. They are legion. I do not deny that sin is an integral part of this drama, but when I no longer sin I will caste that stone. If your daughter does, in fact, have HIV, I am sorry. I know that antiretroviral drugs, which can theoretically allow an infected person to live as long as a non-infected person, are extremely expensive. Yes, I know that many of them are paid for by the US’ PEPFAR program, but your corrupt civil servants have syphoned off most of the money paid into that fund and so you do not have what you most need. Granted, I do not know, but in a world without justice, I can no longer be surprised when I see gross evil like that go unchallenged. So in my hypothetical you need to steal to make the money it takes to provide the life-giving drugs your daughter needs. I know this is likely not the case you face, but the mere fact that it is very plausible says enough: You and I were not born on equal footing and if I were in your proverbial shoes I would do exactly as you have done. Not because it is “rational” per se, but because I would love my daughter just as you would love yours. I do not deny you your own agency in making life decisions. Poverty does not erase agency or volition. You made a choice to take something that was not rightfully yours--and that was a choice that ultimately has negative moral implications (unless you’ve been reading J.S. Mill lately).

So resources are not distributed even remotely equally across the world. I have benefitted much from the largesse of my society, the exploitation of others, and—by the grace of God—the relatively safe and just public arena I inhabit. To say that I earned all that I have would be a misnomer of the highest order! What arrogance it would take to believe that I have earned that which I currently have before it too returns to dust. But more dangerous that arrogance would be the belief that I am entitled to that which I temporarily possess. And here lies my dilemma.

That computer, ultimately, does not belong to me. It has been entrusted to me in the way that oxygen, friendship, and the beating of my heart have been entrusted to me. But all of these things, although I can make a humanist case for their being intrinsically being tied to my “self”, I believe ultimately belong to God. He gives and takes away. I will not try to pretend that I sometimes do not take issue with this reality because I do. You may not identify with what I say here, but these past two years have been years of profound loss for me. No so much in the material sense although there is plenty of that too, but in other realms. I have characterized this past season as a season of loss, because it has been here that I have come face to face with the fundamental injustice of this world that underlies our desperate and pitiful attempts to have orderly, fair, and predictable lives. I have seen and experienced things that can never be made just. They cannot be made right on this earth and have destroyed any notion that true justice, as God describes, is even possible on this earth. It has taken a long time to divorce my concepts of justice letting Rawls and Locke and the liberal Western tradition have one concept, and have the truth belong to God. I am not against liberal legal systems; I am merely noting that the justice that God demands and desires and will someday usher in has never been fully realized on earth. The civil rights movement was absolutely a movement towards justice, but it was not justice realized. You know all about injustice I’m sure. Maybe you grew up on the streets and saw police officers rape with impunity. Justice would seem like a far-off thing at that moment. Maybe the woman you saw being raped was your mother. Justice would have died for you that day. I wish we could sit down and talk about justice and what it would look like to you, because I am sure I could learn a lot from what you’ve seen and experienced. But we never will. We never will because to you I exist not as a person with hopes and dreams (some of which recorded on a computer), but as a target—a mzungu with money. And you’re likely just another Ugandan I see on the street corner of Bakuli underneath, say, the shadow of the Gadhafi Mosque. In a different life we may have been friends. I do not know you, but I like to believe that I am free to be without enemies in this life. I have found hatred to be a tiring, fruitless thing.

So I do not hate you. You have no idea what I have lost when you took something as innocuous as a computer from me. You do not see that my anger and fury still have nowhere to go and so I point them inward. This is now a part of your story, not just mine. For in a broken world we cannot contain the effects and consequences of sin. They linger, woven into the fabric of time and space, effecting things in far-reaching ways the butterfly effect only hints at. The immediate effects may be mundane, like my inability to communicate with my loved ones or write email updates. Yet the far reaching effects may be the toppling of governments. We should never see ourselves as so powerless as to view our sin and personal and benign. When you take from another you both sin and give God a space to do a work of redemption. I have a right to be angry at you. I have a right to feel legitimately harmed by you. But I know that you do too. I would not say you were being unjust if you levied equal venom and ire at a world so unjust as the one you and I inhabit. We are a tragic generation you and I. I born to a democracy that has taught me to kill and you to a cleptocracy that has taught you to steal. Justice, then, is far from us.

I need to say something now. You’ve deeply hurt me and unleashed something in me that you will not suffer; I will suffer. I just want you to know that. It seems petty from a distance, but you’ve not walked a mile in my shoes (and, granted, I’ve not walked a mile in your shoes either). This event is far more symbolic and indicative than you know. And yet this sorry excuse for “life” will go on. Obviously I do not make such choices, for I would run life much differently than God. That’s why I’m not God. We can all be thankful for that. Your choices though, sir, have made me face many things—mostly that entitlement that I am guaranteed anything past death in this life. I am not. All my ideas and passions and desires will one day return to dust from whence they came. I will be forgotten in this life having left a mark that only God will be able to judge. It is the same lot for you, my friend. And so in eternity we are equals. It is only here, separated by arbitrary and artificial social hierarchies that neither of us conceived in which we are forever pitted against one another. So today I will give you something that cannot be demanded, just given. I am giving you forgiveness because I recognize that the differences between us are ultimately infinitesimally small and that if God’s justice were to be brought down I may be found less just than you. Maybe not, but in God’s eyes it is possible if not probable. And it matters not because we would both be found woefully inadequate and we both need grace. So I forgive you. This is extended without condition. I hope there is a moment when your sin finds you out and you become acquainted with justice and would then be brought to repentance. But my end of this does not require your sentiments at all.

In truth, I forgive you partially for selfish reasons. I hope in doing what I know is mercy reminiscent of that which has been given to me I may learn how to forgive the person I hate the most, the person I blame for most of what I’ve experienced, the person I’ve plotted to kill since I can remember: me. I have become the enemy of myself and have saved my most brutal invectives for no one but myself for the failures that, in my mind, characterize my life. Forgiving myself would be a profound release for the way I psychologically deal with the fundamental injustice of life is to see where I fit in the picture and tear myself to pieces, regaining that sense of control that powerless people like myself often desire.

I forgive you and wash my hands of any desire to get retribution. Despite my deep hurt, fury, and relative financial ruin I believe the words I have said…

…I only endeavor now to feel them.

Goodbye,

Dan

Ps. Thanks friends for your prayers, support, and offers of financial support. I love you all.

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African Journal #9: Kampala: Crossroads of life

Africa Journal #9: Kampala: Crossroads of life

I am nearly convinced that I would die if I could not journal. Over the years it has become the lifeblood of my heart and soul and one of the only places I can really pray. I know I talk a lot in person, but the internal dialog is profoundly different and even faster. This amounts to an incredible need for processing. I am an “external processor” and so in lieu of human-to-human conversation this is where I turn. I am never without a journal, especially here. Whether it is in my physical journal or my 300+ page long computer journal, it is visited often to write what I feel and in so doing, discover who I am, what I know, and, most of all, what I believe. Few times has journaling been as important to me as it is today…

Today was probably the best day I’ve had since being here. It was an incredible journey through the various aspects of being immersed in Ugandan life. Its culmination was found not 45 minutes ago where I found myself atop Namirembe Hill, just a kilometer to the East of where I live (in Mengo), looking over the lit-up city. I just looked at it and remembered. Kampala has been, for better or for worse, the crossroads of my life. I likely could never capture the incredible changes that have occurred in my heart in this very city. When I walk down its crowded streets they remind me of times when I was so very different. A lot has changed since the last time I was here in August of 2008. Unfortunately the mosquitoes still remain. But I am a different man today then I was back then and as I stood atop Namirembe tonight I just cried in a confusing mix of joy and resignation. I think that hill represents, to me, the very real struggle for my soul. That nagging question finds me here: whether the hurt in my heart that has been surfacing over the years bodes well for my spiritual and emotional health, or if in the end it will kill me. That is why I am here, writing, being more honest than is probably wise.

Kampala is where I really started to take a look at my life and what it was being used for. Kampala is where I broke down crying on Rubaga road one night because I could not fit the complex reality that surrounded me into my head and heart. Kampala is where I fell in love in more ways than one. Kampala is where some of the best men and women I’ve ever known call home. Kampala is where I watched a government systematically deprive justice to a group of Congolese refugees I cam to love. Kampala is where I have been angry, scared, joyful, alive, sad, and painfully alone. Not every moment here, of course, is an example of Dan’s emotions running the gamut. But in the moments where I sit down and think about it all I am overwhelmed. I believe that cities sometimes inhabit a realm that is otherwise untouched when one is removed from the writhing, busy mass of people. But here humanity is all around you. It is here, amongst the throngs of people going about their business that I feel most acutely alone. This is a constant thread, or so it seems, of these letters from Africa. I do not yet have words to describe what it is like to come “home” to a place that is so singularly alienating and inviting. All of life is a paradox and it seems all the more apparent here in Kampala. Perhaps I spiritualize too much something as inanimate as a group of buildings that happen to be filled with humans, but when I am moving from city to city I adapt and assimilate and contest not just to the culture, but also to something wholly other. Phoenix affects me differently than D.C.; Kampala differently than Nairobi; Hong Kong differently than Dubai; Augusta, Kansas differently than Oklahoma City; San Diego differently than Amsterdam. I do not know if this makes sense, but in my hyperactive heart and mind I perceive subtle differences in the collective whole that are not easily named or identified. I have theories as to why this is, but I have not come to any conclusions. And yet understanding a city’s effect on me is an important endeavor for this city is where my heart must learn what it means to survive. There is more to say, but that will suffice for now. What a day it has been.

…. And this day began in the African way: Digging. Uncle Peter and I spent sometime digging to remove the weeds around the guesthouses where I stay. They are a pesky lot, but a huge hoe has the final word. I wasn’t very talkative this morning—which is often the case—and Peter asked me what I was thinking. I didn’t know. He said, “let us take tea.” So I gathered my things for Kampala and headed to House B for tea. When I got to House B Kamara, one of the young men who work the land here, asked me if I could help him set up a facebook account. So I did. It was funny asking him some of the questions because you could tell that he was unsure of their importance. Political ideology? He just said, “Uh…I love God.” You have to love Africa! We set up his account and then Uncle Peter checked his email—a internet-connected computer at the house is an in demand commodity. As Uncle Peter read his email, Kamara and I talked about being in our late 20’s. He said, “ah! You need to get marriage. You are too old! For me, I will get marriage in 3 years. Why are you not married?” This deceptively simple question has literally been asked of me dozens of times since being here. Granted, marriage is basically a social necessity. This was explained by Kamara when he said, “If I do not marry, my family will not respect me.” To which I asked, “what if your wife dies?” He said, “then I will find another wife.” We talked a little further about what marriage meant to him. Suffice it to say, for whatever reasons are most salient to the each of us, we have quite different hopes and expectations out of marriage. Kamara remarked that I did, however, need to find a wife soon, as 28 was “too old!” In the past I’ve attempted to put dating and marriage into cultural context when the topic came up, explaining what different factors are at play in the West when two people are “in love.” This is usually a somewhat fruitless endeavor, but my African friends usually ask, and I usually am willing to explain if they are willing to listen. Something that is notable is that I have a number of Ugandan friends who have spent a considerable amount of time in the US and it sticks out that they never ask these kinds of questions. I did not want to talk about me and so I quickly just asked him some questions about what he would like in a wife. He was only too happy to answer and offer projections about when he could “find” (select) a wife. I will never cease to be amazed at home much pre-planning men in this culture put on finding a wife. It seems wholly removed from the inherent nuances and individualities that one finds in a person when they actually know them. But I suppose the rhetoric of “finding” a wife explains all that needs to be explained.

Then my boda, “Brown” as we call him, arrived at the house and he and I drove off to Kalule so I could catch a taxi in to town. I was blessed to get a front window seat, so I put in my earbuds and jammed to Anberlin all the way to Kampala, thinking about some of the questions that have plagued my heart these past few weeks. In Kampala I took a boda to Mengo and met up with Shawn at the house. He’s such a rad guy. We love to sit around and talk about Land Cruisers and adventures, and today was no exception. He also loves meat. He’d never been to the small “restaurant” in Kisenyi outside of the goat slaughterhouse. So we rectified that. The meat may have been even better this time! Shawn and I discussed what we viewed as the crux of Ugandan politics since we as of yet have been unable to ascertain what are the actual substantial differences in policy/ideology between the long-ruling NRM (Museveni’s crew) and the opposition. It is easy to make light of Ugandan politics when you’re used to the overly stark contrast drawn in the shameful spectre of American politics, and we recognized that and sought to be charitable to Uganda’s political beliefs. It was a wonderful conversation with a wonderful man over some wonderful food. It was a good day.

Then one more boda ride and we were in Kivulu, the other major slum in Kampala. We played some football—a sport I doubt I’ll ever be good at—and then I gave a devotion on the story of The Good Samaritan. I had been laboring over how to articulate the concept that the Jews were the enemies of the Samaritans, and thus the power of the story is in Jesus’ sweeping assertion that your neighbor is anyone, up to and including your enemy. The villain in the hearer’s ears would have then been shown as hero. The first, after all, shall me last. But what could draw my young, non-political listeners to an understanding of the gravity of Christ’s words? The answer, of course, is football; soccer for all you Americans. Shawn can be thanked for this nugget. So in my retelling of the Good Samaritan story I had the first person to walk by the bleeding man be a preacher too busy to concern himself with the hurt, distraught man. The second man being an MP (Member of Parliament) who pretends someone calls him so he can avoid eye-contact with the bleeding man. I then note that the blood from the beat-up man is falling onto the man’s new Manchester United t-shirt. This man was a—almost literally—dyed-in-the-wool “Man U” fan. For my American readers, Manchester United is one of the premiere football clubs on the planet. If I am not mistaken David Beckam plays/played for them. For my Samaritan I have another man walk up to the beat up Man U fan. This new man is a fan of Arsenal, which is by my limited knowledge, one of the biggest rivalries in the sporting world. The analogy worked. The kids howled at the concept that these two would help one another. And so went the story as we really tried to understand that Jesus telling the young lawyer that your neighbor was anyone in need, even the enemy, was an incredible statement. Oh how I hope this foundational truth was able to sink into their hearts. How much we all need to wrestle with the demands of such a truth as this.

From there the A Perfect Injustice team headed to an Ethiopian restaurant on Rubaga road. I’d eaten there a few times, but it had been years before. Not much had changed. It was still dark, menu-less (which is basically all of Africa), and refreshingly Luganda-free. Amharic was of course the language of choice. They didn’t have meat that day, so we had huge plate of njera with assorted vegetables. If I’m not mistaken, these are known as wats. So I carefully tried to remember to keep my “unclean” hand, the left, underneath the table and I dug it. It was incredibly tasty and it’s a great meal to share with the incredible company I was with: Gina, Amy, Abby & David, Uncle Lawrence, Uncle Eddy, Shawn & Sarah, and a Ugandan friend of Abby’s. These are some of the incredible folks I am blessed enough to spend much time with here in Africa. An interesting, educated group of people for whom faith is a call to serve and act. I am thankful for them all! Unfortunately I had to leave early as I had an important event to make!

Jumping on a boda I finally got down to 3,000 shilling I made my way through the continually hellish central-Kampala traffic to 1,000 Cups, and coffee shop catering to tourists and wealthy Ugandans. This place is a place of memories for me. It had been the only real coffee shop that I spent any considerable amount of time at the last time I was here. I was also looking for a very special antique coffee grinder that had been there 4 years ago. I could not find that exact grinder, but I did find one like it. This, however, is a story for another time, another place. I ordered a mocha and sat down and started to journal the flood of feelings and memories that had rushed into my head and heart. The words bled onto the pages and I wonder if anyone saw how oblivious I was to the world, barely drinking my decent espresso drink. I was ruefully drawn from that place when two of my favorite people walked in the room: Abbey Lutaaya and his wife, Sandra. I cannot even tell you the joy that jumped into my heart when I saw him! I immediately wondered how it had gone so long since I’d talked to him! We embraced and smiled and the years of history started to flood back. Abbey (a short name usually given to men named Abdul) and I had lived together in 2007/2008 the first time I had come to Uganda. We had a modest, single-room flat just off Rubaga road near the heretical Miracle Center Church. I loved that time of washing clothes on the roof, overlooking the verdant city, walking to the internet café, and taking bodas for 700 shilling to the small house on Rubaga where Lutaaya’s organization, African Hearts was located. Those were simple, humble times that I feel blessed to have been a part of. Lutaaya and I quickly because fast friends and when I returned to Uganda in the summer of ’08 we picked up right where we’d left off although things had changed considerably better for Lutaaya and his boys. There was now a new home being built, Ssenge, for street boys and a home for the original “Mengo Boys” that were in Lutaaya’s charge. We had the best of times that year. We had amazing American interns, cool experiences, and when I got back from a short jaunt to Congo, a lot of work completed at the new Ssenge house. There are so many fine memories. This was all back when Lutaaya and I used to talk a lot about his love for Sandra. My, how times have changed.

Sandra, Lutaaya, and I all sat down and endeavored to catch up. It was a whirlwind ride. So much has gone on. The stories of miracles and triumphs were almost too much! Abbey and Sandra recounted the traumatic birth of their daughter, Nevaeh, in which Sanda, technically speaking, died during the childbirth but then came back to life. Seriously. What an incredible story, one that was remarkably close in certain details to my niece’s traumatic birth. I told them that story as well. Lutaaya told me about some of the boys I used to know and how Musa Musoke represented Uganda in a football club in South Africa and is now the captain of the team here in Uganda and should be able to get a full-ride to many schools of his choosing throughout the English-speaking world. Incredible to think of this hilarious, fun little boy who used to call my brother “teem” as a 16-year-old on his way to perhaps study economics in London and being the captain of a football team. God is good. The three of us just sat there and laughed and remembered and just caught up. It was amazing and we made plans to make sure we spend more time together even though they are a busy family and African Hearts has grown considerably in size and scope. When the power went out in the part of Kampala we were in we just kept talking, using the light of the laptop to carry us on. Eventually we had to leave and the Lutaaya’s dropped me off in Bakuli so I could catch a boda to Mengo, just over the hill. It was here, however, that I decided to walk. My heart was so full with the events of the day and I needed to process, cry, and just be alone. I walked through the bustling city at its best time: Friday Night. I smelled the roasting goat meat, exhaust, and various stewed vegetables. I saw a Muslim man muttering a prayer, and lovers holding hands against the backdrop of the hilly, lit-up city. I was home and I began to indulge in the emotions that I’d long held back and I started to cry for both the beautiful and the mundane, for both the epic and the awful. I stopped by my favorite grocery store, greeted some folks and picked up some water, The East African newspaper, and some snacks. I then just continued to walk. I was almost home when two men approached me asking me for my email address. They wanted to come to America. I politely told them that I could not help them. One man gave up and walked away, the other, as is characteristic in these conversations, tilted is head slightly to the side as he beseeched me to “give [him] 1,000”. I told him I could not and I carried on my way, greeting the boda drivers at the corner near my Mengo home. My heart still had so much that needed processing. When I arrived home I immediately walked in the door and fired up the computer to get this all down. Some many hours later, after an intermission with my housemates in which we watched an episode of the BBC’s Top Gear, this letter has come to an end.

I recognize the number of folks who have waded through this deluge of tedious writing are probably few. For those who read this sentence, thank you for listening. Goodnight.

Dan

Africa Journal #8: Africa Shopping List

Africa Journal #8: Africa Shopping List

You can get almost anything you need here in Uganda if you know where to look. This is great, but the imperative word in the previous sentence was almost. Here is a short list of the things you should absolutely bring with you to Africa that you cannot, at least to American quality standards, buy here or shouldn’t buy here because it would be so expensive. Again, not an exhaustive list of what to bring, just the essentials that would be wise to pack with you from the states:

· Hi· High-quality backpacking socks and underwear

· Backpacking compact quick-dry towel

· Containers of your favorite American peanut butter

· Individually wrapped pieces of quality, European dark chocolate (I prefer Lindt)

· iPod filled with plenty of music, podcasts, and audiobooks

· A decent set of headphones

· Breathable, dryquick t-shirts

· Petzl AAA headlamps! Many. . .

· Face wash, Toothpaste, Shampoo & Conditioner (I prefer the Burt’s Bees stuff)

· Starbucks VIA

· Quality polarized sunglasses

· Aveeno sunscreen

· All natural mosquito repellant

· Chewable fiber (this is a really good idea if you’re eating the local food often)

· Zebra F-402 pens

· 10L/14L daypack w/ bladder (I love my Arc’Teryx Endorphin Pack)

· Zip ties

· SOG multi-tool

· Pepper spray

· All-natural multivitamins

· Water purification filter (backpacking grade)

· Resistance bands for working out

· Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

· Quality lithium AA’s

· Coleman camping lantern

· Benadryl anti-itch cream

· Lawry’s Garlic Salt (or whatever spices you can’t live without)

· Loradatine allergy pills

· Aluminum camping spork

· Photos of friends and family

· Photocopies of your passport, DL, and shot record

· Topo map of your country and adjacent countries

· If you’ve got the room, bring toilet paper. You’ll thank yourself later

· And finally all the books you’ve ever wanted to read: You’ll likely have time to read them and while there is a decent bookstore, if you’re a hardcore reader, it still leaves a lot to be desired.

You may be saying, especially if you’ve been here before, “You can find that either at Owino market or Nakumatt” and maybe you can, but the previous list is of things it would be better to bring from America to save money or to have the selection and quality that you like. There is one brand of American Peanut Butter that is good here, but it’s expensive and it is just plain American peanut butter. I like the natural JIF. Yeah, can’t find that here. You can get electronics here, but they are almost exclusively trash from China. Good dark chocolate is hard to find too. Quality clothing is almost non-existent. You may be thinking, “a lot of stuff is missing from this list! What about baby wipes, milk chocolate, quality sandals, hat, journal, medicines, The Economist, etc?!?” You can get all those things here for similar prices on what you’d pay in the US or significantly less.

Fellow Africa sojourners, anything I’ve forgotten? Let me know!

Africa Update #7: “Muzungu Musings of a Madman”

This has been my first weekend in Kampala. True to my fears, I’ve been getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. Fifty-seven bites on my arms alone last nigh—with a mosquito net. I’m not exaggerating either. Se la vie.

There is so much on my heart that I am simply going to write and not think about what I am writing. Just write the confusion and pain and anything else. I has been a simultaneously lonely and enjoyable experience, a more magnified example of what the whole of my time in Africa is like: surrounded by amazing people, a few of them friends, and yet there is a loneliness that is ever present. In truth it has been present for years now. So Africa, then, really is just a further magnification of the actual perceived state of my life. I hope you do not read this with pity, for I do not benefit from pity, nor do I warrant it. My life is blessed for while everyday is intimate with devastating struggle, at least I know I am alive.

Something “switched” in my heart some time back. It would not be accurate to say it was a moment; rather it was a number of moments, all tied together in one narrative. You may call them “insight” if you prefer psychodynamic terms, “epiphanies” if you prefer human terms, or “revelation” if you prefer spiritual terms. I cannot—will not—speak to those things directly because I do not yet have language to convey how I see things past a few “simple” truths. I t is possible that part of me is unknowable for even I am frustrated by the poverty of verbal language that can be used to explore “reality”. I have long mused that perhaps that is why art even exists. Obviously I am not the first to say such a thing but when I see the debates about what art “is” I have to chuckle for such a debate is necessarily removed from art, from beauty.

Beauty too is something I’ve mused on for a number of years. I do not yet understand it and hope to never understand it in a way that makes it benign or safe. I cannot speak to its essence, but as Justice Steward once said about obscenity, “I know it when I see it.” Moreover, I think Dostoevsky spoke truthfully when he said, "Beauty is not only a terrible thing, it is also a mysterious thing. There God and the Devil strive for mastery, and the battlefield is the heart of men.” Why is that important? Because my heart is definitely a battlefield. It is as much a battlefield today as it has ever been. I refer to myself as “bifurcated” because that is one of the few words I know to accurately and succinctly state the condition of my heart. Dostoevsky’s protagonist Raskolnikov from Crime & Punishment means “schism”, which I think is an apt descriptor of my own heart, and that too is a germane term. James (would likely call it a “double mind” (likely Orwell would as well). And this is but one thing I am trying desperately to understand, but I am at war with myself and cannot find solace in the dichotomies I often wrestle with. I am always wrestling with the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus puts the finishing touches on his epic sermon by beseeching those heeding his call to “not be like them” (Matthew 6:8), that is, those who do not call Him King. There is a separation here and that is what I’m focused on. We could make a simplistic interpretation, arguing that the simplest idea is likely the most correct (law of parsimony), but we deceive ourselves if we believe his commands have tame, moderated applications. As I wrestle with his call on my life it becomes more radical and demands more and more from me. But I do not know if it produces more righteousness or peace. This tree may bear no more fruit today than some time ago. It truth, grace probably has to bridge that gap so that I can operate as a child of the King, not as one obsessed with complexities and the overwhelmed by the anxieties therein. To be free from that, to truly love and live would be an indescribably joy to me and yet they are only viewed in a mirror dimly lit. Yet love and freedom are inexorably linked. I think of the last part of my favorite poem, Lovelace’s To Althea, From Prison: “If I have freedom in my love and in my soul am free; Angels alone that soar above enjoy such liberty.” Thus, God’s love manifest for us in Christ is expressed through grace. All, after all, is Grace.

It is probably only in Africa where I can indulge in such truthful (and esoteric) reflection. I do not attempt to deceive in the West, but I am an product of my beloved environment, and assimilate well, keeping much to my cerebral self, and feeling, but only talking of logic and intellect. Here I am both participant and observer. There is little safety here, in the broad sense. One must live engaged in life to survive. My time is spent as the unfortunate child of privilege, my host country affording me far more respect than I deserve. I hate how I am defined my race and nationality, but in truth, my perceptions of Africans, despite my many friendships here, is largely of seeing them as “other”. Not dehumanized—far from it—for I am intimately aware of the humanity around me. How can I not weep when reading a book about the Rwandan genocide when the events happened less than 100 miles from here and involved people very much like the people all around me; involved people very much like me? And yet I am other here and cannot arrest that terrible self-awareness. Even so, as I write this I am indulging in my privilege, drinking cheap lattes that cost more than the average Ugandan makes in a day. So I am keenly aware of the separation. I feel it more here than when I amongst dozens of forgotten kids that haunt the consciences of the privileged. Even in the street program, interacting with those who Jesus used to wrap in his arms, one can feel lonely. And I do. This loneliness isn’t relational although I’ve felt “romantically” lonely, mostly by my own doing, for as long as I can remember. But what I speak of here is different and still not defined. That’s why I’ve managed to just write things as they come to mind instead of attempting to communicate something defined. I’m just telling you what I don’t really know. This is merely a mindsteam, born out of a heart that pains….

Last night while at a store a Ugandan girl about my age was hitting on me and asking me to take her to America. She smiled and gave me what I take to be a look of interest. I will never be good at these things. She asked me if I had a phone and I said yes, and I pulled it out. In my confusion, and because I was looking for some legit peanut butter, I handed it to her when she asked if she could see it. She put her number into my phone. In her one small action, so much was revealed about the state of man. Granted, I am not interested in this girl, but I started to think about what it means for me to have the capacity to be her escape. What colonial history so created me into a “rich white man” supposedly “superior” to others? Why was I born with the power to take advantage of the situation this girl has laid before me? What did I do to deserve the grace that has afforded me the wisdom to know that taking advantage of her desperation would be evil? It is grace, after all. As Brennan Manning would say, “All is Grace.” And it is true. A part of me just wanted to tell her, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for things I could not possibly explain. Can you forgive me?” Perhaps it is shame or even fear that holds me here, but perhaps I want to just confess and beg forgiveness for a world as unjust and broken as the one I see every single day no matter what continent I am on.

As I am about to send this out someone knocked on our door. I answered the door and there stood a small street boy named Hiiya. He is about 9 years old and he came in hoping that we would just take him in. He did not ask, but what does a young, young boy living on the streets need to say? He needs to be loved, to have a home, to get off drugs, and to have a place, even for just a night, to lay his head where his life is not in danger. We brought him in and Gina, with the tenderness of the grandma that Hiiya has likely never known, washed him and cared for his small wounds. She asked him many times about his life and where he has been. Kisenyi was the answer, of course. It’s the slum A Perfect Injustice no longer works in. He has been hiding out/living there after running away from the API home twice to go back to drugs. It was clear he was high and that the huffing was exhausting his slight frame. Much of the time was spent in silence and I just watched Shawn and Gina take care of his wounds, both emotional and physical. Then we had to return him to the streets, a perfect injustice for a small boy.

As Shawn gave Hiiya a piggy-back ride to the street I asked Gina, “What is the hardest part?” She just said, “What part is easy?” Touché. He had, after all, just come in to be treated like a human for a little while. I don’t know how I would have answered the question I had asked Gina. I may seem verbose in my writings and from personal experience, but I am remarkably taciturn here. I am more observer than participant. As the wound was being patched I just watched and contemplated life. I do not know what I felt. I do not even know what I feel now. Perhaps I don’t feel much of anything and maybe I am just numb. Maybe we are born of dust and to dust we do return. Perhaps we should take out sackcloth and cover ourselves in ashes. Perhaps we should just cry out to God for mercy.

Uganda 2012: 1st Photos

Here are some images from Kampala and Bombo. Many more can be found on my facebook here. (you don't need a facebook account to see my photos)

Street Program: 1st Photos

Here are some images from the street program. The rest are on my facebook here.

Africa Journal #6 "offering"

Africa Journal #6

Sometimes I can’t see people for fear I’ll fall apart. The other day a man came to the window of my taxi/van and looked at me straight in the eyes and asked me for money. “Please”, he said. He asked for a trivial amount of money. The exchange rate here is some 2300 shillings to $1 USD. I don’t remember the amount, but I remember not having change and that being what I thought of first. I guess I could have given him 10,000, but somehow that felt hard, or “enabling”, or whatever else self-justifying reason I need. Change is the bane of using money here. Without a doubt this is a rich-American problem, but the ATM dispenses barely usable 50,000 shilling notes. Those are effectively worthless because the average boda boda, vendor, taxi conductor, whatever will have maybe 8,000 shillings, $3-ish, on them. As much as I hate to admit this, it is one of my biggest pet peeves in an effectively cash-only society. And yet what I am so annoyed by, ultimately, is poverty—something I personally know almost nothing about. Relative to my society’s standards I may have at least a conceptual understanding, and I have studied it more than most, but I know not an iota about the poverty the man in the window asking me for 75 cents knows about.

He extends his hand into the beat-up, anonymous Toyota Hiace to the mzungu who he knows has money. He is desperately poor and it would be foolish to not ask for money. Any of us would. His glazed-over eyes from a disease long since victorious against his immune system cannot so mask his humanity that I escape unharmed. I am always harmed. I am harmed because I, like most Americans, refuse to give him my money; money I did not earn, money I myself had asked for from others. What a detestable creature we have the potential to be. I ask you to please not protest, telling me “but your ministry is elsewhere, with those young boys, use the money for that!” This man is what those boys on the street, that minority who live to be in their 30’s, eventually become. No, this man is my ministry too. Sure the context was not opportune given that I was on a taxi to head to Kalule and I was with another and we had somewhere to be, but just because I would prefer a different context for meeting such a man it justifies my failure to temporarily meet his need? Did I really worry that he might buy banana beer with it? What was I concerned about? The faceless 13-or-so others in the taxi who do not know me, do not speak my language, or have what I have? Am I afraid that they will judge me, fit me into a stereotype? Is it that I have two false choices, one to be the greedy Westerner who hoards his money and the other to be a foolish Westerner who has come to the developing world with a naïve compassion so he can feel better about himself by letting others take minutely of his opulence? But in the back of my mind I am mindful of perceptions because as a white person on public transportation you’re a spectacle in this nearly homogonous (by U.S. standards) society. But do I really give a damn what they think? Doubtful. Am I even correct in what they may think? Also doubtful.

Poverty for me often causes patent self-obsession and self-awareness. It has to. Because as I walk down the street even my small backpack and its contents are worth more, materially, than most of what the average person in Uganda has. All around me are the people who daily face decisions I don’t face. What is more, is that behind those people, the not-quite-extremely poor if you will, are the widow and orphan and prostituted girl and person without legs—those in which poverty is not merely an inconvenience or a dream delayed, but a vicious, life-taking beast. In truth often times I wish I did not see them but I do see them. I see them because my heart leaps in my chest because I cannot, simply cannot, fit them into my reality. The overwhelming injustice tears at my understanding of reality and causes my paradigmatic mind to collapse again and again and I want to weep because though I’ve seen it all before, and as much as I try to not see, I still do.

If you’ve ever read a blog by a sojourner spending time in the developing world these observations eventually come to light. You eventually realize that your action or inaction is both powerful and woefully, infinitesimally small. That is because we naturally throw the one in with the whole. This is our fatal mistake, the default, and safe position of the heart. It says, “I cannot affect all so I conserve resources for more effective endeavors.” It is logic, pure and simple. It may even be reason. But I am not a whole, but a part. I believe this because I can be saved from myself and because of my own complicated “free will” (please, no tired reformed/Arminian theological debates), therefore making the individual something holy that God both recognizes/knows and offers agency. Because of that agency and singularity I “exist” and I can do both what is right and what is wrong. “The whole” is a construction whose only validity is found in Christ’s bride, the Church. That’s it. There is no other whole. As an individual and as a part of this holy mysterious whole, the Church, I am to see others as not manifestations of some whole that cannot be affected, but as a soul—a person with a context and will, a person with needs and dreams, a person I am infinitely responsible to. This person is the person who reached into my taxi window and asked for 75 cents. This is the person who got nothing from me but a pained look of guilt—which cannot produce love—and a slight shake of the head.

Yesterday I was in Kampala and I sat down with a man who is crippled and lives on the street off of charity and alms (I assume). His name was Francis. I wish I could have spoken to him more, but we eventually succumbed to the awkwardness of not sharing a common language. Yet the brief time with him was rich. His smile was infectious and I wondered, almost aloud, whether my life and faith could survive his socially and economically debilitating infirmity. He literally drags his lower torso and ineffectual legs on the ground, after all. I do not have the answer for myself, but I can say that I have rarely seen more joy than in the people who have the least. It is a categorical shift in perspective; I often wonder if a person growing up in affluence, such as myself, can ever achieve such blissful release. I have prayed for it, although halfheartedly. I am not glorifying pain and poverty, but if Christ is with the downtrodden, the outcast, and the poor in Spirit then surely He is somehow easier to find in the people Christ would have been with in the first place. I am forever wrestling with the reality that Christ spent his time with “sinners and prostitutes”. Do we do that? Do we know how? In truth it was a joy to be around Francis, for this man is a man like me. He has wants and dreams and though I do not know his and he does not know mine, we are not necessarily so different. He cannot exist as a spectacle to me, someone to merely muse on, but he must be a person to me; he must be someone to hope the best for, pray for, and love. Of course there are hundreds like him on the street. Most I will never meet, but hopefully in those brief moments in which an arm reaches for them they know that they are loved. I would not go so far as to say I “pointed him to Yesu”—the Luganda word for Jesus—but I hope that God can use my weakness and inability, and yes, “my” money to somehow bless this man.

Musing on such things is always a risk because at the end it always feels sentimental because in reality most of what I have cannot be simply given away. It is my experiences, beliefs, struggles, knowledge, and relationships that most shape who I am and what advantages, however meager, I may have in this life. My poverty then is of a different substance than this man’s but we are both poor. His material and opportunal poverty is the most striking and obvious, but poverty is fundamentally about relationship. I cannot speak to his relational poverty. I know that in a way this is where I am both most rich and most poor in my own life. It would take a long time and a new language to impart on others what I am trying to say, so I will not attempt. Perhaps only a person like myself could be so privileged to even think as I do, considering the language that I use to describe what I observe as if a scientist and not an agent in this world; perhaps he’s never had the opportunity, despite entire days spent as an unspoken to, invisible human, to consider the quandary that I perpetually consider. Perhaps he knows things and does not simultaneously doubt them. Perhaps he knows so much more about life, death, and truth than I. That I can believe.

Thanks for listening,

Dan

African Journal #5 “Semper Gumby”

African Journal #5 “Semper Gumby”

You know you’ve never quite left home when you stay up just a little bit longer so you can read on Gizmodo about the new iPad 3. While I’m not a shameless Apple fanboy, I still felt like a died-in-the-wool American last night as I experienced a surge of excitement when the cutting edge moved forward once again. Am I going to buy one? Who knows. But I’m just glad it exists. Retina display FTW!

Granted, such esoteric—and they are—internal conversations are completely irrelevant in a social setting that has about 1/100th of the wealth that I do. And it 2010 I made so little money I was able to get the Earned Income Tax Credit. What a world we live in. I wouldn’t dare call it just. And yet that odd questioning of justice in light of relative income cannot even touch the internal wrangling that occurred when I observed one of the most profoundly unjust events of my life yesterday. I cannot get in to it, to be honest. But I can say that while being, again, profoundly unjust it was the most just outcome. That is why I somberly noted on my facebook page that I watched my hope for seeing true justice on this earth taken to the backyard and summarily executed. I have wrestled with the concept and notion of justice for quite a few years now, but it is experiences like these that solidify the sheer complexity and injustice of life (and subsequent death). It takes time and effort, all of which is painful, to divorce one’s concept of justice from esoteric notions of justice such as that which the likes of Locke and Rawls argue. I’m all about Western discussions of justice, but they do not even begin to answer the questions that plague the fundamental understanding of life as I have observed it. I do not say that to say that my experiences are so much different than yours, but only to say that I’ve spent (ostensibly, wasted) many years asking the question, “yes, but what does it mean?” This borderline-fanatical preoccupation with the particular and existential does not bode well for my intellectual life, but to say “this is how I’m wired” wouldn’t be doing it justice.

Perhaps that’s why I’m enjoying Blood Meridian so much right now. It doesn’t entertain morality or right and wrong or justice. It is simply describing what is and the truth that violence is the underlying state of man. When it all becomes too much for me I pick up “Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” a philosophical classic which is proving to be quite an intriguing book, although the sparse mentioning of Buddha is enough to put me to sleep. Expect a more detailed report on that book in the future. And with that I’ve made it sound like all I do here is read. If that is your conclusion, you are correct.

These last few days have been spent wholly here at Bombo, the site of A Perfect Injustice’s homes for street boys. Normally every other day I would go to Kampala, but it has not been so for the past four+ days. And that is fine, but I am a bit stir-crazy. So because I’m here, and I actually have much to accomplish, I have attempted to read and read that which will assist me in my time here. Yesterday I almost knocked out the MTS Teen edition, which I rather liked. I needed to read that because today I “started my ministry”. Woop woop! That’s right, folks, the rubber has hit the road. Today I did 30-minute individual counseling sessions with the four boys in this home (I actually hit my time targets too!). Starting next week I will be doing two days of individual counseling, one leadership MTS group, and one boys MTS group. In case you’re wondering if that is a higher load than originally planned, the answer is “Absolutely”. Yet circumstances require that level of involvement, and that is why I’m here. In the last four days everything about my ministry plans here have changed or been modified in some ways. But that is ok; it is what I expected. In the Marine Corps, an organization delusional enough to have “Semper Fidelis” (Always Faithful) as its motto, we had a saying to describe the military reality that things were always changing so you had to have a pliable outlook on the future. We called it “Semper Gumby” or “Always Flexible”. It’s a great tool to have in the “missions” toolbox because you can never trust something to go as planned. Murphy lurks even more so in Africa than the US. I’ll probably speak more in the future about the counseling and MTS groups, but since today is the first day I’ll just briefly note that “yes, I am completely out of my league counseling young trauma survivors, and no, I did not scar them for life.” It went well and I’m expecting big things as we unpack these young one’s experiences and see God’s hand in the beautiful and tragic lives of these young boys. In the interim, please pray for me because I feel like I’m out of my league. I’m serious.

Tomorrow I’m going back to Kampala, which I’m rather excited about. I think Uncle Peter is worried that I won’t be able to navigate Kampala without his Luganda skills, but I’ve told him, “I’ll be fine! What’s the worst that could happen?” Having been mugged, kidnapped, and robbed in Africa—and all three separate events—I tend not to try to muse on that question too much.

Thanks for listening/reading.

Dan

Ps. Invisible Children seems to be causing quite an internet buzz with their Kony 2012 campaign. Any thoughts?

Africa Journal #4

Africa Journal #4

Sometimes you get frustrated in Uganda but then you talk to one of your African friends and they inevitably make you smile because darn it, they’re just so cool! Se la vie. It’s been a whirlwind couple of days and they’ve been wonderful. Today hasn’t been so wonderful, I suppose. I’ve just had my computer charging at House B since I don’t have electricity in my guesthouse room. It’s all good though.

I’m in somewhat of a writing mood although it is late here. Perhaps the Sunday afternoon siesta I had today will carry me through. I’ve been doing a lot of writing here, which is for me indulging in a passion of mine, and that’s been good. I don’t share all of it though. Most of it is processing where I am as a person. Doing this in the context of being completely out of my cultural safety net is probably the best way to do it. You’ll never feel the differences of being “you” until you’re around a society in which you have very little in common with. You become startlingly self-aware and sometimes that is a good thing. I also become a little reclusive. It’s not that being with Africans is taxing as I have many African friends both here and in the US that I’ll seek out to see, but sometimes the language barriers and cultural hoops can just cause one to need to slow down and read. I’ve found an interesting coping mechanism since being here: Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” an epic tale of brutality and carnage written by probably one of the greatest masters of the writing craft. I almost laughed at myself as I listened (it’s an audiobook) to stories of the Commanche slaughtering a ragtag group of gold-seekers as I sat on a crammed taxi in a terrible traffic jam for three hours…to go 20 miles. I got a couple things out of the chapters: 1) I have a perverse fascination with McCarthy’s unbelievable command of the English language, 2) there is a cathartic side to his truncated sentences and incredible similes. It’s not really befitting a “mission trip” but I don’t care. It’s fantastic and it is further augmented by the Sermon on the Mount series I’ve been listening to. Did you know that Dante had an interesting take on Jesus’ famous sermon? Who knew? My particular favorite was on Bonheoffer’s and Yoder’s perspective. They seem to really grasp the radical picture Jesus is painting in Matthew 5 and 6. Speaking of Matthew, I’ve decided it’s going to be my book while I’m here. I have tended to spent a lot of time reading the Old Testament and then sometimes painfully make my way through some of Paul’s letter, by far my least favorite part of Scripture (just being honest). Yet this time I am going to pull the Jesus card and say that He is what I want to focus on. I forgot to get another copy of “The Jesus I never Knew” before I left. I’ve given mine away so if anyone wants to send me a copy please let me know….

Anyways, so Matthew is my book of the bible I plan on poring through in great detail. Choosing such things can have a large effect on the way one views his journey and season and so I’m glad the Lord has put this one my heart. The Lord has also put other things on my heart that are not directly related to my immediate task at hand. Those things are important, but my first week or so here has afforded me the space and time to really work on some things I’ve needed to do for a long time. My heart is incredibly heavy with what feels like inevitability and it is so difficult to watch seasons pass when we have such ambivalent feelings to their reality in the first place. In truth, though, I have to accomplish a certain number of things in my heart and life before I can leave here in peace. As I said in my previous letter, I’m not an unladen man. Ps. “unladen”, as MS Word has been so kind to remind me, is not a word. I don’t care.

Yesterday I hung out with a 20-somethings group from Streams of Life church. I was the only non-Ugandan. It was awesome! We sat at Stream of Life until the sunny-day-turned-epic-rainstorm ceased and we could board our rented transport for our hour or so journey to Entebbe, the actual capital of Uganda. I have yet to figure out why Kampala is considered the capital since the government resides in Entebbe…. Anyways. Entebbe is beautiful and where we were going was the best of the best: The Uganda National Botanical Gardens. Now I’ve been to some amazing botanical gardens. The best I’ve seen I think would be in, you guessed it, Santa Barbara, California which is already one of the most amazing places in the world. But I will go ahead and assert that it is safe to say that the Uganda National Botanical Gardens have Santa Barbara beat. At first, they don’t look all that impressive, but then you drive through a rainforest that includes some of the best flora Africa has to offer and then you find yourself at the shores of Lake Victoria. It is beautiful. My favorite spot however was on one of the little side roads away from the shore. It meandered into a non-thinned part of the jungle and from there broke off into little paths that were topped with wet stone, with water running in between them. Above towered 100-ft+ trees completely ensconced in layer upon layer of vine and stem. It was thick, verdant, and muggy. I felt at once overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the Creation around me. I had to duck under massive fronds and step over magical babbling streams. It was a “thin place” as the Celts once called a place in which Heaven and Earth’s division was less than clear. I did thank God, but I should have just prayed and stayed in that posture. I was alone and I felt it acutely. I felt that it would be more appropriate to share such a place with a lover, my beloved. I do not know the likelihood of that small wish uttered under alien trees coming true, but it was my momentary wish all the same. Sigh.

I returned to my African friends who were resting on the shores of Lake Victoria. Previously I had taught a couple guys how to swim (most Ugandans cannot swim) and we were all a little tired. I listened to some music on my iPod just drifting in and out of this world, totally unencumbered by the generalized anxiety that usually characterizes my every breath. That day had been wonderful: I saw a massive lizard chilling on the rocks, I had played a energizing game of catch with some of the ladies, I had swam into the murky but warm equatorial waters of the lake, I had eaten a very nice meal that mercifully was not only matoke, a staple dish here that I get quite tired of. In fact, they even had “Irish” (normal potatoes to Americans). They were wonderful. As was the avocado, chicken, beef, rice, and the African Coca-Cola. Fear not, those who know me, I had previously purchased an ice-cold Pepsi down at a rather exotic looking jungle cantina down by the lake surrounded by old Land Cruisers and grills with meat smoking on it. My African friends were a delight to be around. That age group is my favorite in Africa, and not merely because they are my age group but because a) they are fluent in English, and b) God is doing incredible things in the hearts of young men and women in Africa. They seem somewhat unencumbered by certain issues and concerns that plague their contemporaries. I saw this clearly in Malawi amongst the young Christians there and it is a joy to see that again in Uganda. These people are incredible believers and they are passionate about furthering the Kingdom and loving their neighbor. It is an honor to just spend time with them.

We took some photos, discussed some things, slapped the incessant bugs (the price you pay in paradise), and loaded back up into our rented Toyota Hiace (If you’ve been to Africa, you’ve very familiar with these wonderful machines). The ride back to church took forever. But Peter and I needed to go much farther: Back to Bombo/Kalule, a village area about 30 miles north of the city centre. Which brings us to the aforementioned 3-hour journey late last night. Thank God for the iPod. Steve Job, RIP.

Ok, that’s all I have for now. I could of course say much more, but it’ll almost midnight here… and before I did a couple hours of writing I did a couple hours of legal reading. Yes, just for fun…

Dan

Ps. Peter and I uploaded some photos from the lake. I’ll try and get mine up soon so you can see some of the epicness I was talking about. Unfortunately about my 3^rd photo into the jungle excursion my battery died…