One Month

This is a letter I sent to many of my friends and family a few days ago. A few people suggested I post it as well.

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow I will have been in Uganda for a month.

Every morning I wake up at seven to gospel and/or Christian rock music (I am rooming with a Born-Again Christian who likes to start her day off with a healthy helping of Jesus). I spend most of my day traveling between villages visiting and interviewing people and in the evenings I write profiles and articles. I love the work I’m doing here and I feel like it’s been a very good “match” – I am getting so much out of living here and think in turn I’m also able to give a lot to MIHV in return.

I am deeply grateful to the people I meet everyday who welcome me into their homes and tell me their stories. I spend six or seven hours a day sitting with people and having conversations about their family, education, aspirations for their children, their sex lives, marriages and separations, religion, childhoods, reasons for using (or not using) contraception, and their goals for their communities.

Today Specioza, a 50-year-old woman, brought out a blue plastic photo album filled with photographs of her ten children. Another, Benedict, told me how while giving birth to her fifth child, labor was obstructed and her uterus ruptured. That child, who died in birth, would have been her first with her husband. As she told me her story, her husband picked up his three-year-old daughter from his second wife, who he married shortly after Benedict’s hysterectomy.

Sometimes it’s a bit strange, going up to strangers and asking them what type of contraceptives they use and why, how their religion affects their decisions, how being one of three wives affects them emotionally or their children financially. But when you get past the initial fear of asking such personal, at times painful, questions, you realize it is a glorious opportunity to be invited to ask these questions. It is an opportunity to begin to know a country, one woman, one family, one story at a time. Sometimes, when I’m walking along the little paths that weave past mud houses and through the fields of banana trees, I inhale Uganda and try to exhale gratitude.

I cried for the first time during an interview recently while talking to a 14-year-old girl named Fatumah. Fatumah’s parents separated when she was an infant and the family lost contact with the mother. Fatumah’s father raised her and her siblings. When Fatumah was 11 her father was diagnosed with AIDS. The girl’s older siblings had moved away and Fatumah became his full time care taker. He died a year ago.


School started for Ugandan children about two weeks ago and when I spoke with Fatumah, a few days before school would begin, I asked her what grade she was going into. She explained to me that she was kicked out of school last July because of overdue school fees (Uganda has universal primary education, but school fees for secondary schooling can be prohibitive, even for families where both parents are living). She plans to spend the fall working her family’s small farm to raise money so she can go back to school. When I asked Elijah, one of MIHV’s Ugandan staff if he thought she could feasibly do this, he said it was unlikely she would ever go back to school. “Other expenses will come up,” he explained. “Who will pay for the paraffin for the lamps?”

I asked Fatumah how much she owed the school. She owes 15,000 Ush for the construction of a new latrine, 5,000 Ush for lunch, 14,000 Ush for her uniform, 3,000 Ush in exam fees and 7,000 Ush for school supplies. When I realized 44,000 Ush (about $27) is keeping a 14-year-old from going to school, I started crying. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to cry in the middle of an interview, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be any good at this job if life here didn’t make me cry sometimes.

Take care,
Sarah

My Wednesday

Today I woke up, made tea, helped distribute 30,000 condoms, spent 6 hours interviewing family planning community health workers (essentially peer counselors trained by MIHV), and spent another couple hours writing up the interviews and sending queries for MIHV.

Overall, a pretty normal day.

Emma

“I’m surprised he’s not scared of you,” said Lilian. I have just picked up Emma (short for Emmanuel, a common name for Ugandan baby boys born on Christmas). His dark eyes gaze up at me, he pokes his tiny fingers at my pale face, then he sighs, sticks his thumb in his mouth and rests his head against my shoulder.


I think there is a joy in holding a baby, because you are holding close to you someone who knows a great secret.

As infants we know something that is lost when we no longer know what we know because it is what we feel, but because it is what everyone around us does. We do not learn language because we instinctively feel that the word “milk” means lunch or that “mzungu” means white person, outsider – we acquire language from others. But before language, there are some things that are not acquired, things that are imbedded deeply in our brains and heart and pancreas, and seem to be lost on everyone over the age of 18 months.

Where ever I go, people stare at me.

Not a surprised glance or a quick once over, a long, uncomfortable stare. Sometimes I meet their gaze, hold it, smile, all the while thinking, ‘Yes, I see, you’re looking at me, I’m white, but that’s enough now.’

Ugandans may be many things, but they are not mind readers. They just keep staring.

Every time I go to the latrine behind the Mubende office, a little girl calls “Mzuuuunnnnguuuuu, Mzuuuuunguuuuu,” drawing out the “ooooo” sounds. It’s been a week and she still feels the need to herald my presence. Yesterday, a man at the market, ten feet from me, barked, “Mzungu, Mzungu, Mzungu.” While running in Ssembabule, I looked to one side of the road, and there were a dozen people, adults who had been working, children who had been playing, all frozen, their eyes following me down the rutty road.

Emma’s mother is one of our puppeteers for Family Planning Days. As his mom rehearses, Emma and I walk around the event, stopping to watch the cattle being herded by, wandering over to a group of children laughing, past the women who stare.

Emma isn’t offended by my whiteness. For him, my hip is just a hip and my shoulder’s paleness does not merit an announcement. It’s just a shoulder, a good a place as any to rest his tired head.

Little People, Little Shadows

Are we speaking the same language?

I think Mwange (MIHV’s Mubende driver) and I are both speaking English, but sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Earlier today I called him and said he did not need to pick me up, I would walk. He arrived a few minutes later.

Then this afternoon, as we arrived at the apartment complex several of the staff live at, we had another meaningful conversation:

Sarah - “How long have you lived here?”

Mwange – “Oh he’s just opening the gate.”

(I look confused.)

Mwange - “Wait what were you asking?”

Sarah – “Oh, I wanted to know how.... long .... you .... have.... lived .... here?”

Mwange – “Ooooooh. About three hours.”