To the village

I have just returned from an amazing trip to the north east to Torouro, and though it is a town that shows prominantly on the map, it feels like one of the little agricultural towns you find along small highways in California, you blink and you've passed it.

It's dusty and slow and the air is so clean and the landscape unbelievably beautiful. Johnson's wife Rosette works at the nearby "hospital" which is really a group of small one story buildings. The inpatient ward goes without any medical staff for part of the night, and there are no lights. Family members have to stay and care for their loved ones - feeding them, bathing them, etc. It was fascinating because on the site are a series of clinics that are funded and operated by the CDC with funding from the Doris Duke foundation and some association to the University of California.

I met my first American, an Indian-American medical student from UCSF, Neil has been working at a pediatric outpatient reserach clinic for the last 4 months. He works alongside two amazing Ugandan doctors who recently finished their residency, and rather than going into private practice and making a pretty good living are choosing instead to serve this very poor rural population that suffers severely from chronic malaria and HIV. They gave us a tour of the facility and it was very very inspiring. Afterward we went out dancing at a party and I've developed a taste for the local beer.

Tomorrow I leave for Kabale where I will go to the village. I am a little nervous but also very excited. My trip to Torouro gave me a little taste of what I might expect. The bus ride there was filled with blurred images of the small round mud-walled and grass-thatched huts that I will find. It's supposed to be a really beautiful place, Kabale, much colder than Kampala.

Afterward I have an opportunity to head north to Gulu, where there is an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camp. I am told the conditions are beyond imagination. Many of the families most harmed by the conflict to the north are here and you can imagine the kinds of physical and emotional human inflicted injuries that are endemic, not to mention the same kinds of public health problems that the rest of the country is facing.

I had a feeling that I might meet someone to go with, and a Ugandan friend I met through Clara in Kampala works for an NGO that has an office in Gulu has offered to come with me and we will stay in their office. I am definately going as long as my contact is still willing to take me.

Why do I want to go? I found a quote in a magazine (The Sun) I brought with me from home which jumped out at me -- "Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight". I don't want to just think of it and I don't want to go to Gulu simply to observe, I want to be in witness to what is happening in the world right now. And I hope that maybe people reading this blog will at least think of it.

I want to sit with people and pray to God that by connecting to suffering somehow we open doors for things to begin flowing again, for suffering to move away from these people who've known far too much of it, and for the wealth and plenty of our world to come to them in some way. I have no idea if it's true, I only know that it does not feel right for me to come to Africa and pretend that there are not women here without lips, children with missing hands, not to mention rape and torture.

I see people in the suburbs of Kampala, living in what feels like spontaneous homeless encampments, they have no way to earn any money at all. They try - young men 20 years old walk the streets selling newspapers, small candies, cheap sunglasses - and as they eye me deeply hoping I'll buy something for less than a dollar - there's a desperation there. Women sit all day long in shops staked with various goods and may fin 1-2 customers in a day - or none.

There are hair salons, mobile pedicure stations, everything, anything - trying to find a way to make a reasonable living. Jesus - it really should not be that hard in a country that has so much in the way of natural resources.

In the village I am told it's worse. I am sceptical that life in the village isn't somehow better than in the slums - despite a lack of modern conveniences such as running water. The slums seem completely demoralized, isolated from family, seperated from the surrounding community because everyone speaks a different language. People seem afraid of each other. I feel like the village which at least has a solid community and sustained culture must offer a happier existance. But I will try to see for myself.

And then there are the people living in IDP camps - truly hungry - malnourished - traumatized - hurt. These families really need help. And they need it right now. Honestly, can't we do something? There is a great need, and it's overwhelming for anyone to change it - we can't expect to satisfy our ego by seeing huge changes made at our hand alone, but at least we can know we are adding something to the scale on the side of change.

I want to care about people - and though it is hard in America to stay connected to these realities, and though it is impossible to avoid clueless white-woman syndrome facing such things, I want to do as the quote in Sun magazine suggests.

Uganda is really a very very stunningly beautiful country. With hills as green as Hawaii and an abundance of fresh pineapple, mangoes, bananas -- bananas everywhere, sugar cane, cassava, tea, rice, coffee, guava and countless other signs of abundance - it is a very rich nation.

The soil here is pregnant. It's red and moist and rich; plants are growing anywhere there is undisturbed earth. Knowing that our most early human ancestors lived here; that this is the place where the human species was born is very magical.

I went on a short hike the other day and some small grey monkey's came out to see me and then ran into the forest. There could be no following them, I've never seen such dense forest.

This place should not be suffering like it is, and the people here love Americans, they want to study in America, they want to travel to America, they want to know the only American woman they've ever seen in person, we need to connect to places like this - come here - acknowledge the problems - see them in a global context, and be in solidarity wit the good men and women here who are working to change it.

If people want to help at all send me at email at my yahoo account. Now I am off to buy supplies to bring to the village. Hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving and I was thinking about all of you.

Much love,

Sara