Thanksgiving Day

My Thanksgiving day in Africa began with a short jog around the school with a friend, and a cup of sweet black tea. Followed by a morning of classes and a power nap on my favorite bench in front of the children’s library. The focus of the day was on the evening and I found myself (and others voiced similar sentiments) throughout the day purposefully moderating what I ate so that I could surely be hungry for the American feast tonight. In the afternoon, after a good lunch conversation, some friends and I ventured to a professor’s house to use their stove to make our apple crisp dessert for the dinner (and enjoy the couches, family-style house, and even watched friends). I ate so many apple peelings, delightful. I am okay with being an apple peel glutton, it could be much worse. Hehehe. It reminded me of my younger days when mommy would use the apple-peeler-corer-slicer and I would eat a paper towel heaped with a long apple peel snake: that I would chomp and slurp. Good memories relived. Thanksgiving dinner was in the Vice Chancellor, Stephen Noll’s backyard. Essentially a gorgeous garden spacious enough to hold the plus eighty students, student guests, staff, and other ex-pats from the community. Their was music and a big tent, an abundance of chairs and even floor mats. There were other mzungu students (or Hungarians as Kimberly thought) from a program called Food for the Hungry (not Hungary).  I met a wonderful girl named katelyn, and it was good to talk through our different experiences, process aloud with a new face, and think through reengaging the US culture upon return. The feast was barbequed poultry (maybe turkey?) and roasted matooke bananas (an African meal would not be complete without matooke!). a table buffet of coleslaw salad, mashed potatoes, steamed pumpkin, green beans and corn, a dinner roll, and a traditional African fruit salad (watermelon, pineapple, banana, and some popo seeds). It was delightful to enjoy the party with so many people and activity and talk and relaxation all at once. Then was dessert… oh my goodness. Apple crisp, chocolate banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, cakes of sorts, frosting from cakes that had been devoured before me, and kettle corn. I kinda feel shaky now from the sugar overload. But it was worth it ALL!  And to top off the night there was a projector brought out for the showing of Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving and Christmas films. It was humorous to watch everyone enjoy watching the cartoon so much… its tradition! I am so thankful for my family, the opportunities that I have had in my lifetime (especially Africa), for the friends I have made in my time here, and the place I am at in my life now. Thank you Jesus for life and hope in this crazy fallen world.

Free to laugh. Free to dance. We are family.

This Monday afternoon, I heard a quiet knock from my atop my plaid-covered bed. And the timid opening of our painfully creaky door where I reside. Followed by the squeal of a young girl in a smart, hot pink pinafore, who proceeded to hurl herself onto me. Trailing quickly behind was a young lad, smart too in his pink button-up and daily polished black school shoes. With a quiet grin he too gave me a big hug, the biggest a skinny boy of age seven could muster I believe. Retracing their steps away from the mat they removed their shoes, then climbed atop my bed beside me. Puppy dog eyes the size of goose eggs that time back had looked around my room with bewilderment were more at home this day. Sharing gnuts together, to fill the tummies of beloved children who had likely not eaten since posho and beans for lunch, the young boy was especially glad, and careful to eat all, even the crumbles. Puffing up his cheeks and popping the air out with his small fingers, likely laden with dirt form the schoolyard, I knew he loved me. Words were not necessary. After sharing laughs, reading about Yertle the “Kabaka” Turtle, and dancing the calypso, I reminded myself that “a visitor is not an intruder” (Taylor). And thus purposed myself to treasure my time spent with these lovely children, knowing too that my time here with them is on the brink of being over. Pasting stickers on each other and translating animal names of the stickers to Luganda, I remember the deserved giggles for my fumbling tongue.

Free to laugh. Free to dance. Unhindered and unashamed. Living outside my fearful self and enjoying life and love.

Holding hands we closed out dance party to “We are Family.” Hands and bodies forming a circle of three, spinning and moving our feet to the tempo, the girl exclaimed, “we ARE family” with purity on her smiling lips. Flooding emotions filled my heart with the inclusive intimacy that my sister had invited me into. I am remembering now what Dr. Brooks shed light on just the other day: Jesus allowed the agendas of people to interrupt Him and was fully present in loving and teaching them. “To live is Christ,” to love is Christ… He who says he abides in Him ought Himself also to walk just as He walked” (Philippians; 1 John 2:5-6).

What if I had not let their interruption conflict with my coursework? What if I had rushed them out after handing them a lollipop like last time? We never would have danced as a family. I never would have seen the lesson of life played out for me. Life is relationships. Presence. Selfless love. And lived not through the tick marks beside a long list of to-dos, but through the allowance of sporadic interruptions to exceed all plans ever imagined. “This is your life/ are you who you want to be” (Switchfoot).

aids in uganda.

i wrote this for an assignment, but thought you might enjoy reading it!

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest estimate of children and adults living with HIV in the world, according to a UNAIDS report at the end of 2005. The number is a breath-taking 25.8 million human beings, of the 40.3 people infected worldwide. As early as 1982, Uganda had only two infected persons with the “slim disease,” which exploded to 25-30% of the population being infected by the late 1980’s. A combination of government and non-government forces have successfully worked together to tackle this sweeping epidemic, and have since lowered HIV/AIDS prevalence in Uganda to 6.4%. (Fountain, UCU) Jane is a ten year old girl who was orphaned by AIDS. Tests will show whether she too has been infected, but how will she deal with this death sentence?

Being in Sub-Saharan Africa myself I have had no intimate relationships with anyone directly affected by HIV/AIDS, or at least willing to disclose this painful information to me. My only interactions have been vicariously through other’s stories and through the field trip to a community center in Luwero, to play with children infected with the disease. I was surprised, and humbled, by the excitement these children had for life; and their consistent praise for having life that day and even specifically for their health. Consistently this semester we have stressed the importance of relationships and presence and bottom-up evangelism and aid. Interacting with the children on a personal level, playing games and being graciously handed pieces of chapatti from a boy only five years old, lends me to put into question my previous view of the epidemic.

Before coming to Uganda I knew little about HIV/AIDS. My formative argument for this subject thus came from my politics book review on William Easterly’s book, White Man’s Burden, where he addressed the problem of AIDS and aid. He argues that prevention is a better way to save lives than treatment because there is no cure for AIDS but there are definitive ways to prevent the disease from spreading. With his statistics and the information we learned this weekend, I feel like this is the best way to use our money for foreign aid pragmatically. But I can not see how to feasibly turn my eyes and heart away from the children who are already suffering and have been abandoned, or let the numerous who have been handed their death sentence fall into hopelessness.

The exposure I had to AIDS was very limited while being here, therefore I will not fabricate an empty statement about feeling called to help with HIV/AIDS. However, hearing other stories about friends living with families who had lost so many family members to the disease, and hearing stories like orphaned Jane, reminds me of the mere breath our lifespan on earth is. And that pushes me to live my life purposefully on purpose. To love as Christ loved us: sacrificially and without passing judgment. To live a life of ministry through relationships, and commitment to treating people as people created by the Creator. Inviting interruptions to invade my self-absorbed consciousness and live for others. And being fully present in whatever community God leads me to be a part of, whether diseased, lame, or rich.