The NY Times in Gulu

Featured in the Health section of my daily NY Times e-mail, Food Scarcity and H.I.V. Interwoven in Uganda

Torn on Sunday

I'm reflecting today on something I've been struggling with for about the last six weeks, now three months into my year here, the time for a missionary when novelty subsides one must really choose what the composition of one's life here will be. One of my big recurring struggles is what to do with my Sundays.

In the beginning, the choices were simple and obligatory. Visit this church today, meet the youth, be introduced, sit and smile while you hear a sermon you don't understand and sing songs you've never heard of. (The songs are easy to understand, since they're usually made up of one repeated phrase. Though, I haven't yet felt compelled to sing, for risk of seeming (and being) inauthenticly enthusiastic.) This repeats until I've at least made a couple of visits to the area churches, and visits with the Bishop to parishes around the diocese. Again, I stress that this was the easy part. I and others knew my role - guest and servant to the church - and I found my Sundays there to be both worshipful and a symbol of solidarity with the worldwide Communion.

But the time for introductions has ended. When (on occasion) I go to church, I go alone. When I arrive, heads turn. I sit in the back to avoid stares, but Acholi children (and a few adults) don't mind turning around to stare, or even moving to seats behind me so they don't have to crane their necks. And I'm quite sure weekly readings aren't from any lectionary found in my Prayer Book. (Though this is minor, it did strike a blow to that solidarity I was talking about).

So here's what's happening on Sundays now. I wake up, check e-mail, cook breakfast, listen to radio. And it's time. I have three options: throw on some clothes and walk down to St. Philips's Cathedral just down the road; hop on my bike and go to packed Christ Church in town; or pull out my prayer book for Morning Prayer on my porch, read the lectionary for today, and get an online sermon from St. Martin's back home.

For my spirtual money, option three is hard to beat. Much less stress and anxiety, no one stares at me, I get a sense of staying current with the church calendar (especially now in Advent), and a sermon that challenges and enlightens. But who ever heard of a missionary who didn't go to church with his host people? What missionary worth his (or her) salt doesn't come home singing the songs of worship of the people he's with?

The bigger problem is that I know where the answer takes me. I have a hunch that if I invested time going regularly to one church that the stares would subside and the songs would become familiar. With a little help in interpretation I'd become familiar with what the church is trying to do, and be able to offer what I bring, just like everyone else.

But, so far, the porch looks awfully friendly.

Death of Otti

Otti, then second-in-command of LRA, and major asset in hope for peace, was apparently killed in October.  A story in government-leaning New Vision newspaper, here.

 

Murchison Falls

I present to you Murchison Falls, in the National Park of the same name, a three hour drive from Gulu.  This is the Nile River, about 150 miles or so from its source, Lake Victoria.  No still picture or video will substitute being there beside it, but you'll get both soon on the website. 

 

The crew you see here are from Invisible Children except myself.  Some IC friends I've made graciously invited me, and I'm very glad they did.  Aside from the boat safari and optional 1-hour hike to the top of the falls, we took a sunrise safari through the park grounds (I riding atop the Land Cruiser) and saw giraffes, warthogs, impala, hippos, elephants, crested cranes (national bird) and....(drumroll) not one, but two prides of lions, at a range of about 15 feet.  An amazing two days.  I might throw in some stories about it soon.

 

Lastly, congratulations to my sister, Molly, who was confirmed today at St. Martin's, Charlotte.

 

John Simpson
Missionary, Diocese of N. Uganda
www.ecm-raleigh.org/ecm-raleigh/Uganda

Up From South Africa...

Rev. Michael Lapsley, from the Institute of the Healing of Memories in Cape Town, is here in Gulu for three days of sessions with victims of the LRA war who've, like him, been maimed by the violence of others.

He spoke at the TEAM (Towards Effective Anglican Mission) conference in Boksburg, South Africa in March of this year. And if you subscribe to the Episcopal Life podcast, you'll find his speech appears right after that of Rt. Rev. Nelson Onono-Onweng, my bishop and host (I live in his compound). As this conference was going on in Africa, in North Carolina the possibility of spending a year in Northern Uganda, and under Bishop Onono-Onweng, became real. These two podcasts framed in my mind what I wanted my mission to be.

Rev. Michael Lapsley: I highly commend to you his words and story.

Support Your International Missionary...

... on a fixed dollar-denominated salary: Keep the dollar strrrong!

At Least It's Not Y2K

In a conversation recently with some extension staff at the diocesan office, the subject of cell phones came up, and the quick rise of such in Northern Uganda. In the year 2000, not a cell phone was to be found here in Gulu, save maybe some exhorbitantly expensive satellite phones. And this made me think about how different my missionary experience would be if I'd been here back then instead of today. Here are a few observations:

• Cell phones these days are as cheap as $30 and no contracts. A line, in the form of a SIM card, is as cheap as $2, and minutes are pay-as-you-go. This means within a day or two of arriving here, I was able to get a line, text home, and receive calls. Now I get at least 2 calls a day from home with no pressure to keep it short. What an outlet...
• As I type this I'm streaming radio from home, CarTalk actually, using an internet phone on loan from a friend. It costs about $50 a month, and allows me to get news, email friends, and search for resources helpful to my work. And I can do this from home or office.
• It's about a 20-minute walk to anywhere I need to be in town, to reach any friends from work. The cell phone let's me holler at other 'muzungus' in the area (and let's them spread the word about new people here), and keeps me in touch with diocesan staff who are often less than part-time and quite scattered at any point during the day.

These are just a few things that, if now was then, would dramatically change my missionary experience.

Ants Marching

Ever seen Tremors? Kevin Bacon, circa 1990? Allow me to refresh: Kevin and some pals are in a deserted desert town, when huge subterranean worms come and try to eat them. Remember how it made you pick your feet off the floor, put cherished belongings on high shelves, or at all costs remain on stepping stones or paved surfaces to avoid touching bare earth, possible sending seismic signals to the giant beasts?!? I never had these side-effects from watching the movies (of course), but from a far more serious and scientifically plausible demon.

It all began on a Friday dusk. I was relaxing in my hammock, doing some reading, being amazed at the complete serenity in which I'd managed to place myself. As the light faded, as it so quickly does at this latitude, I unhooked the carabiners, draped the parachute nylon over my back and retreated for nightfall, supper, and the nightly lighting game I play with the local flying insects.

Barbara (seen here), my girl back home, was leaving for the weekend and I wanted to have her call me before she left, but the cell phone was nowhere to be found. I would try to use the computer, but the power is out and the laptop is about dead. Aha! It must have fallen out while I was in the hammock. With flashlights a group of us look around the backyard, dodging the slumbering cows and the output of their day. No dice. We even try calling it, nothing.

Just as I'm working my way around the side of the house, I feel it. It's never the first one that you feel. He's always halfway up your leg by the time the first bite comes. First on your foot, then immediately anywhere else they might be. Safari ants, small, black, hunters. I jumped, swatted, ran to the house. Off with my sandals and pants, I vigorously rub down my feet, calves and thighs, seeing five or six fall to the floor. I stomp, hard. Turn the pants inside out and shake them out further, two more fall out. It's hard not to panic. They're now in my room. Is every corpse accounted for? Under the bed? My shoes? OK...painful, yet laughable. Step somewhere you shouldn't and you sometimes get ants in your pants.

Dinner is ready and I've talked to Barbara. The one place I didn't look, in the balled up hammock, was right where it was. On the porch we enjoy chicken, beans and rice, and a nice long chat. It's getting late, time to turn in.

My first thought was that I had tracked in more than I originally thought, and the first bite brought back all the anger and fear, feelings I thought I'd put away for the evening. But as Job and Sylvia ran into my room, my heart sank a lot more. From my bathroom were thousands on thousands of safari ants, marching along both adjecent walls. They entered the house just a few yards from where I'd been bitten earlier. We moved to the kitchen and saw what you see in this picture, and again the same thing in Job's bathroom. I started imaginig sleeping in the main house and tediously (and painfully) de-anting all my belongings.

Quickly, Job pulls together a plan. The safari ants hate parafin, and this seems to be our only course. We fill a wash basin with parafin from our lanterns and water to cut it, and sprinkle the stuff around the house. First to block their advance, which was by now threatening stacks of clothes and exits, then to drive them back. Their lines of advance were clear columns, finding them was easy, and a few shakes of the soaked broom to turn them around. Victory seemed within reach when we realized we were out of parafin, and dangerously exposed to counter-attack. Unfortunately, there are few places open at 10pm which sell parafin, but fortunately, it's right beside a pub. Now, I can't say if it was benevolent environmentalism, procrastination, or exhaustion (not plausible), but through our inaction we decided to let the ants make an organized retreat and recover their dead and wounded, while we enjoyed cold drinks.

I should've expected it, but it seems there's a symbiosis, a quid pro quo, between safari ants and humans, for when we returned we found them cleared from the interior of the house, but quite busy carrying termites out of the rafters of our humble home. Again an altruistic streak hit us and we decided to let them finish up. I slept well, but with the mosquito netting tucked into the mattress, and flip flops on my desk (with the flat soles for efficient stomping). In the morning the were gone. An empty trail pointed my attention to the next house down the street, and a girl washing clothes. Just then she slapped her back, calmly scooped up her siblings and gathered the clothes.

Health Center II, Oberabic

I didn't want to be the first ever patient at the new Health Center at Oberabic (trans. 'Five Mosquitoes') in Amuru District. The focus should be on the community that came together to voice their needs, the Diocese for helping organize and mobilize the idea, and MAP Int'l., based in Georgia, for funding constuction. It was a day of celebration, full of music, dancing, soda, visiting foreigners; it was a day for standing up! All I wanted was to lay down...

The back seat of the Toyota LandCruiser is a cramped place, not the second row with doors and leg room, but the cargo area, the very back, with the fold down seats for children, the one you enter through the rear hatch. This, combined with the predictably poor roads, the constant acceleration, braking, pothole dipping, then again accelerating, created some unpleasantly funny tummy feelings. By the time we arrived to the procession, lined with dancers, proud mothers, and soldiers (marching along by coincidence), I was definitely not feeling so hot.

I didn't lose my cookies. I wasn't the first patient of Oberabic, but I couldn't resist the hook line. I did have a wonderful time though. Among the diocesan staff riding with me (in more comfortable seats): Bishop Nelson; the Diocesan Secretary, Rev. David Onyach; Information Officer, Rev. Willy Akena; and a journalist from Gulu, I was just along for the ride. Rev. David was the MC, Bishope Nelson shared special-guest honors with the president of MAP Int'l, and we were treated to traditional Acholi song and dance groups, whose songs celebrated the day and the promise a health clinic within a day's walk would provide to these people.

Bishop Nelson told the story of his trip here just a few years ago, maybe 2004, to the attendees. The car got them only as far as the site we were at today. To get to the village further up the road, they had to walk with Army escorts a further 5 miles up the road. LRA soldiers were in the village when they arrived, but that night they shared the village, all resting peacefully. This story illustrates just how fresh the reality of conflict is in the collective memory. The health clinic, in a way, is born of that conflict, since it serves the surrounding camps of displaced people. The clinic is a permanent presence to people for whom even the temporary has become permenant. I don't know how the health clinic will fit in to their future given the need to move out of the camps, where sustenance comes from relief, back home, or whatever that once meant to someone.

The State of Things in N. Uganda

For one month now I've been living and working in Gulu, capital of a district which for the previous twenty years was the pitch of a brutal civil war, an insurgency of resourceful, relentless bush fighters who kidnapped and raped wherever they could reach, and a government counter-insurgency that was at times equally brutal in suppressing rebellion. Here in Gulu, the battlefield was everywhere outside city center, which housed government army barracks. The diocesan office, from which I write to you now, was once a rebel headquarters. Every road I pass on today was at some point a rebel supply route or ambush. Nothing outside the very core of the city was safe from pillage or abduction.

Today, the LRA are in Congo and Southern Sudan, and peace talks with the government of Uganda and the ICC are stalled in Stage Three of a five part process. Ninety percent of the people are still in IDP camps, fearful of the returning home to isolation and lacking basic services (schools, medical, etc.)

Gulu town today has the look of a bustling regional center in a developing country, and it is. What is often harder to see are the scars of conflict and social upheaval. In fact, life in Gulu town, according to many residents, refused to bend to the realities of war. Even night life continued in the roughest of times, as people resigned themselves to the fact that death was a constant and unavoidable presence (like taxes). (Also I'll comment more on the night life when I've had a little more of it.)

I don't fully understand yet the state people are in, or have a sense of what they've been through. For many, I think there is only to live on and rebuild; that's the only reality now. I think their masks are strong, and built on pride and self-reliance. Maybe it's that a terrible reality has come crashing down, and we live now in jubilee, in the real presence of God's grace.

The next four months I spend here will be spent on three things: 1) gathering trainers and their funding for a Youth Entrepreneurship Workshop, 2) a diocesan youth festival scheduled for December focused on healing, 3) reconnecting churches to their nearest Anglican schools, and training their youth leaders. Right now, most of my time has been spent (somewhat unproductively) in the office, building contacts and relationships, and forming a vision for what the diocesan youth program can be, though, again, I'm only in the office for now.

Your support: your prayers, e-mails, Skype calls, care packages, words of conversations with others about life here; all these things encourage me when life seems lonely and the work seems elusive. Talk to you soon.

Calling a Kid a kid

I wake up in the morning to many sounds: trucks pulling out of the compound, roosters crowing, the bells of the Cathedral, the banging of a metal pole at the school next door signifying it's time for something, cows mooing, crickes chirping, exotic birds cawing, and kids screaming.

Yes, here in Uganda, and on this very compound, we raise goats, and I'm pretty sure that goats and lambs are male and female, and that their young are called kids. (If I'm wrong, just let it go. You don't have to post anything dramatic or hurtful.) Anyways, I quickly learned the connection between kids of humans and kids of goats/lambs: they sound exactly alike when they cry. There, a fun fact to impress your friends with.

I have some fun things to post about this week, if I get to it.

• The State of Things in N. Uganda
• The Story of Charles and Lawrence (you're intrigued by the ambiguity), and
• At Least it's not Y2K

Hopefully, also soon will be an e-mail to my list-serve, the YASC list-serve, and whoever I can think of that I know would like to read it but has somehow failed to be on either.

Tomorrow is Independence Day here in Uganda, celebrating 45 years of independence from the British Empire (even though some I speak to say the Brits weren't so bad, and their departure has had ambibuous results). So in light of probable celebration on Tuesday, the diocesan pre-emptively gave us today off as well. Vive Uganda!

A Sunday of Celebration

This, my third Sunday in Gulu, is a special day. Rachael, youngest daughter of Bishop Onono-Onweng, has received her doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from Makerere University. She is a 25 year-old single-mother, and one of only two women in a class of 50.

In St. Philip's Cathedral, only a few hundred meters from the bishop's compound and my house, we are baptizing her son, Omarra, and celebrating her success. The preparations of many weeks, involving family, diocesan staff, and the church community, are put in motion at sunrise, and the feeling is electric. Livestock are carted for the feast, dancers arrive en masse (photo), honorees and clergy are decked out in their very best.

Everyone has arrived at the Cathedral when the procession from the compound begins, fifty dancers with drums and ceremonial garb, singing, proudly presenting their kijiras (the high-pitched yells you'll hear in the video), leading the way for the bishop and his daughter, dressed in full academic regalia.

I've had the pleasure of Omarra's company many times in my three weeks in Uganda. His smile is infectious, loves ripping table cloths off, and loves throwing my dominoes against the floor and around the room! Today he is baptized, marked as Christ's own forever, but this is not quite enough to remove the look of terror and bewilderment the day has caused him so far. After celebrating the baptism with joyous song, we hear a synopsis of Rachel's life, a sermon from a newly-minted clergywoman sporting her cap and gown, and a series of prayers for their future success and our own confession and salvation. (I take this all on faith in my interpreter; my Acholi is not that good yet.)

It's now almost 1pm, and it's time for the reception, just down the road at Gulu High School. We're lead again by the dancers, celebrating, stomping, and ceremonially clearing the way with spears and shields for the honored guests. Now I talked to the Bishop beforehand, and while the invitation does say lunch comes early in the proceedings, I know otherwise. No one's getting a free lunch without paying their dues first! But what a treat: so many great performances by the drummers and dancers, a comedy act, speeches by important people from Rachel's past (again, I can only assume they were amazing).

It was a gratifying experience and a long day. I've asked mom and dad to take notes for my Welcome Home Celebration. We'll see.

This is my first post since arriving in Gulu. I'll try to fill in the blanks soon on how I'm acclamating and what I hope for in the coming months. Thanks for listening.

Traveling Day

12:20p - Tearful round of hugs with the family, Barbara and Lucy. Dad, Mom, and Molly showed proud smiles amidst escaping tears. Robbie was joking and well-wishing; "Live Free or Die Hard", he advises. Barbara was grieving; we are letting go of our best friends.

12:48p - Take off, Goodbye Charlotte. We come 180 from runway heading, and I get my first daylight glimpse of KCLT. See ya in 365! I'm tired, after a long night of packing, crying and talking, but I'm saving my sleep for the next leg.

2:20p - Touch down Michigan (Detroit). Big, juicy bacon cheeseburger at Max and Erma's (love it...). I'm in traveling mode now. Not missing home yet, nor excited about coming adventures, just getting from points A to E. Feeling a little guilty about it.

3:00p - Walk the concourse, failingly hunting for a gift for the bishop. The airport has a beautiful fountain, though. The NWA WorldTraveler desk wasn't caving in to my sob story to use their internet. Begrudgingly I fork over money for the airport service. But I get to talk at length to the whole family and Barbara. She and I plan a transatlantic compline for 9pm. Just before my flight leaves, I give myself a quick and dirty shave in the men's room. Missed some spots, but it'll do. Gotta look good for the Bish.

7:45p - Joe, sitting to my right, is an architecture professor at Va. Tech, traveling to Berlin to give his students a semester-long tour of Europe (where the history comes from). Good guy. 3,928 miles to Amsterdam. Goodnight.

9:00p - Compline, as scheduled, using the collects most familiar to Camp Henry.

3:00a+6 - Touchdown, Amster Amster DamDamDam! Everyone speaks English, hard to tell I've travelled to a new continent, except people smoke in the terminal, and all their gate desk computers are old. There's also smoking on the tarmac. Everyone saw a 747 engulfed in flames as we taxied to our gate! Oh those Dutch. I leave Barbara a voice mail, sing her a verse from "Grand Musician from Amsterdam", and retrieve my e-mail.

4:15a+6 - It's off to Nairobi, in a 747! Smooth ride. I had the fish (anyone seen Airplane?). Wrote some e-mails to be sent later. They showed an episode of The Simpsons, then Scrubs, God bless 'em. I had an aisle seat, which sucked because I was dying to see Europe and the Med. Sea from the air. I walked over to an Emergency door window in time to see the African coast quickly turn to endless desert. Sounds like a boring sight, but without seeing the ground go by, it feels like I blink my eyes, the scenery changes, but I haven't gone anywhere.

12: 14p+7 - Land in Nairobi. It's dark. A nice man named Victor works in a small terminal shop making calls for people. I phone the diocesan office to report all's well. Bishop Nelson is retiring in 2009, so I see an East African Bird Guide that looks up to the task, and box of chocolate seashells, the gift that can't go wrong (unless it melts). A nice Ugandan and I discuss flight details at the Entebbe flight gate. I'm excited and in good spirits!

3:15p+7 - As we taxi to leave Nairobi, I switch to an empty window seat, beside none other than the nice man I'd spoken to earlier at the gate. There's literally nothing to see but darkness after five minutes flight time, despite clear skies.

4:20p+7 - Welcome to Uganda! We walked 300 yards down the tarmac to enter customs. Visa cleared, and for only $50, $100 less than I expected. The room has a dim, flourescent lighting, a theme I should grow used to. My luggage is some of the last to come out, and I nearly miss meeting Rev. Ali - his sign read "Simson David" - but the Sky Cap graciously called him on his own cell phone, and he answered a few feet away. We rode quietly through the dark night, familiar home to him, a new world to me. At Lueza Conference Center we arrived around 1am, were greeted by some late-night staff, and I was introduced to bug-netting and power outages (later proven to be a recurring theme), but I'm thrilled to finally be here. Sadly, despite hopes to the contrary, there is no phone and no internet, and the idea of going to bed without letting loved ones know I've arrived safely pains me. But I sleep well.

The Pieces Falling in Place

Tonight I learned that the last of the fundraising money has come in, and this is a tremendous relief! The process was haphazard, done through e-mail and bulk-rate mailings, but at every turn people were exceedingly generous. Thank you all.

Speaking of e-mails, my State buddy Andy tells me my e-mail went to his Junk folder because "Uganda" was in the subject line, and all the creative work spaces and "flex time" at Google couldn't distinguish my call for support from a Nigerian bank-laundering scheme. Kudos to you if you suffered this fate and still made it to this page. All you missed were some articulate prose and instructions to send a blank e-mail to JohnInUganda-subscribe@googlegroups.com if you'd like to join the monthly list-serve.

In other news, the departure date is September 9th! In the meantime, the details of closing up life here for a year weigh more heavily on my mind every day. The last three weeks at home will have a feel of anything but normality, but can I expect anything else?

Opening Remarks

Two months have passed since my missions training in New York City, two months spent playing and suffering, singing and praying, planning and improvising at Camp Henry on Lake Logan in the gorgeous mountains of North Carolina. And in a month I'll be on my way to Gulu, in northern Uganda, once a regional center in a land of subsistence farming, now a hub to at least six camps for internally displaced peoples (IDPs) and the various aid groups and non-government organizations (NGOs) serving them.

So...if all this is news to you, hit up the Fundraising link, then click on Fundraising letter, and all will (more or less) be revealed. Though, whoever you are, if you've made it to this page, you've played some role in my life, and so you make up some part of the path that will carry me to Gulu.

The links on the left take you back to the site where you started, where hopefully there'll be photos, news on my current happenings, hopefully some audio content, too. I hope to diligently post to this blog, because I hope to make you all a part of my ministry by taking you to the places I go and telling some of what I see and do. Thanks for coming with me, and stay tuned for updates on preparations and good-byes.

Peace