Alcoholism is a big problem here in Bundibugyo. I see it all the time: men stumbling down the road, sometimes even in the middle of the day, carrying the little square plastic bags in which liquor is sold. It’s a problem for a number of reasons. It consumes a lot of money that is usually hard earned and could be used to feed and clothe the family, or to pay school fees. In a place of intense need, it’s hard to see so much money used on alcohol. It’s also bad for domestic relationships, as drunk men may often return home and beat their wives or children. Men also deal with a lot of health problems related to long-term alcohol abuse. This is something we struggle with when employing people – while I am helping them to support their family by giving them work, I may also be further enabling their alcohol problem. It’s hard to know how to address that, since I can’t control how people will use the money they have earned, no matter how much I’d like to.
It’s very easy to decry men for their drunkenness here. It’s easy to judge, to blame them for wasting money that their families desperately need. But then I have a thought – in their place, how different would I be? If my children were always sick, if some of them had died, if I’d lost my wife, if I had to beg, if food was always short, if I couldn’t give my kids a decent education, if I was unable to provide for my family, I think that some way to escape that harsh reality would be extremely attractive. If I were unable to be the competent provider that a man “should” be (for any number reasons, including those out of an individual’s control, such rapid population growth and soaring food prices), if my very identity as a man were compromised, I bet that some way to leave that behind would be hard to resist. Under those circumstances, would I be any different? Would I have better self-control? As you can guess, I can’t be sure of the answer, but I’m thinking it’s probably no.
So, as I struggle with how to think about the chronic drunkenness that is so often a problem here, I have to keep a frightening reality in the front of my mind. That could just as easily be me. In those circumstances, I might spend that money on a way to escape too. That’s a good realization to help me understand others, and a scary realization as I think about myself. So, I still need to struggle against the rampant alcohol abuse here, but I need to try to do so without the self-righteousness that is so hard to escape.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
7 Months
As of tomorrow, I will have been here in Uganda for seven months. That’s pretty hard for me to believe. In many ways, it feels like I’ve just gotten here, especially as I think of all the things that I haven’t done, and yet it feels like it was a different life in which I said goodbye to my family at JFK. I’ve had so many new experiences, so many thoughts, and so many opportunities that it’s almost dizzying to try to think back over the last seven months. And yet, I feel as though I could be doing so much more, making more of the opportunities that I have, experiencing more new things. It’s a difficult tension, and one that can make me feel alternately exciting, lame, courageous, and ashamed. So, I’m taking a more whimsical approach. Here are some little snapshots of my life:
I ride my bike precariously through jostling herds on longhorn cattle on the road. I pasteurize milk at home. I’ve killed probably a dozen rats by stomping on them. I’ve performed several ultrasounds (under Scott's watchful eye). I’ve stared highly endangered 400-pound mountain gorillas in the face. I have had, in sum, probably about 3 days of anything resembling peace and quiet. I am fully convinced that my neighbor Charity is the cutest kid in the entire world. Even after he shattered the truck window with a slingshot. Which he was aiming at his sister. I’ve learned to drive a motorcycle, on bumpy, rutted dirt roads. I regularly remove bats from houses – a somewhat exciting prospect in the land of Ebola and Marburg fever. I’ve watched children die, and I’ve seen them recover from the very brink of death. I tried to perform a lumbar puncture on an infant (sticking a needle into his spine). I almost fought a mob during a soccer game.
Things I like: Geckos on my walls. The smell of jasmine at night. Fresh, cheap avocados. Moonlight I can read by. Playing soccer with my young neighbors. Homemade, brick-oven pizza. Community. The stunning view of the mountains. Falling asleep to rain on my tin roof.
Things I don’t like: Cockroaches. Thieves. Women getting harassed everywhere they go, while I’m left alone. People I’ve never met asking me for money. Dust. Rotten eggs. The incessant calls of “Mujungu!” that follow me everywhere. Manchester United. 110-degree heat.
I ride my bike precariously through jostling herds on longhorn cattle on the road. I pasteurize milk at home. I’ve killed probably a dozen rats by stomping on them. I’ve performed several ultrasounds (under Scott's watchful eye). I’ve stared highly endangered 400-pound mountain gorillas in the face. I have had, in sum, probably about 3 days of anything resembling peace and quiet. I am fully convinced that my neighbor Charity is the cutest kid in the entire world. Even after he shattered the truck window with a slingshot. Which he was aiming at his sister. I’ve learned to drive a motorcycle, on bumpy, rutted dirt roads. I regularly remove bats from houses – a somewhat exciting prospect in the land of Ebola and Marburg fever. I’ve watched children die, and I’ve seen them recover from the very brink of death. I tried to perform a lumbar puncture on an infant (sticking a needle into his spine). I almost fought a mob during a soccer game.
Things I like: Geckos on my walls. The smell of jasmine at night. Fresh, cheap avocados. Moonlight I can read by. Playing soccer with my young neighbors. Homemade, brick-oven pizza. Community. The stunning view of the mountains. Falling asleep to rain on my tin roof.
Things I don’t like: Cockroaches. Thieves. Women getting harassed everywhere they go, while I’m left alone. People I’ve never met asking me for money. Dust. Rotten eggs. The incessant calls of “Mujungu!” that follow me everywhere. Manchester United. 110-degree heat.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
weight gain
It's amazing how quickly emotions can change and I can swing from sobriety to giddiness. On Wednesday, only days after the experience which led to my previous blog entry, I went to one of the BBB outpatient nutrition programs, as I do almost every Wednesday. This was the 10th week of the program, meaning that the 17 children who enrolled on the first day had finished their cycle and were getting their last food. At these distributions I usually have a mix of emotions as some kids gain weight and some lose weight, and seldom does anyone show a perfect upward trajectory. Gain some weight one week, lose some the next; sometimes I've wondered if the food we're giving is really doing any good.
So this week, I looked back over the data for the kids who had finished the program. As I posted previously, the primary criteria for enrollment is that the kids are between 70-85% weight-for-height, so I rechecked their weight for length at the end of the 10 weeks. I was thrilled to see that all but one of them was over their target of 85% weight-for-height, even those who showed relatively modest weight gains. Even more exciting, though, was the proportion of them that were over 100% weight-for-height! 100%! That means that these malnourished kids are at a healthy weight, which, seeing them at the start of the program, is a lot more than I could have hope for, or guessed might happen. While I haven't compiled all the numbers, it was around 5 of them who broke the 100% line, and probably another 4 who were close.
I was overjoyed. As I went through the weights with Heidi, I was almost giddy, laughing as I recorded their current weight-for-heights in their medical records books. Seldom have I felt better about the world than when I saw that these children were gaining weight and no longer met malnutrition criteria. When I got home and people asked me how Busaru was, I replied "It was awesome!" (let's just say this was a surprising response). The world looked beautiful. That's the breadth of emotions I can experience in a span of three days, and they are always in tension. The deep feeling that the world is fundamentally wrong, and the giddy rejoicing at the beauty of life. Of course I treasure and strive for the later, but I'm becoming convinced that both are fundamentally true, that both reflect the nature of the world. We live in a place of brokenness and beauty.
So this week, I looked back over the data for the kids who had finished the program. As I posted previously, the primary criteria for enrollment is that the kids are between 70-85% weight-for-height, so I rechecked their weight for length at the end of the 10 weeks. I was thrilled to see that all but one of them was over their target of 85% weight-for-height, even those who showed relatively modest weight gains. Even more exciting, though, was the proportion of them that were over 100% weight-for-height! 100%! That means that these malnourished kids are at a healthy weight, which, seeing them at the start of the program, is a lot more than I could have hope for, or guessed might happen. While I haven't compiled all the numbers, it was around 5 of them who broke the 100% line, and probably another 4 who were close.
I was overjoyed. As I went through the weights with Heidi, I was almost giddy, laughing as I recorded their current weight-for-heights in their medical records books. Seldom have I felt better about the world than when I saw that these children were gaining weight and no longer met malnutrition criteria. When I got home and people asked me how Busaru was, I replied "It was awesome!" (let's just say this was a surprising response). The world looked beautiful. That's the breadth of emotions I can experience in a span of three days, and they are always in tension. The deep feeling that the world is fundamentally wrong, and the giddy rejoicing at the beauty of life. Of course I treasure and strive for the later, but I'm becoming convinced that both are fundamentally true, that both reflect the nature of the world. We live in a place of brokenness and beauty.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Brokenness
I watched a child die today. A baby boy of nine months. I’ve seen children in their last minutes of life, and I’ve seen them minutes after death, but this was different. I watched, my eyes locked on his tiny, sickly frame, as his breathing and his heart stopped. I watched him go from living baby to corpse. Malnourished, anemic, and infected with malaria, he was barely alive when I arrived at the health center; it was simply too late. As Jennifer tried to get an IV in him, I noticed a subtle change in his appearance which I can’t really describe, and I suddenly I couldn’t see his chest moving any more. A cold, tight feeling settled in my stomach as I realized that I was an eyewitness of his transition from life to death.
His mother collapsed on the floor in almost melodic wailing, as women here mourn death, and the crowd that had been forming around the bed continued to grow. I wondered what the other mothers there on the crowded ward with their kids must have felt. But these women are no strangers to suffering. Watching this death, I was struck very powerfully by what a broken world we live in. Everything about it was just wrong – this is not how the world is supposed to be, this is now how lives are supposed to go.
Seeing the horror of death firsthand and being confronted with the brokenness of the world brought to mind something I’d just read.
“Who then are the mourners? ... They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm of peace there is neither death nor tears and who ache whenever they see someone crying tears over death. The mourners are aching visionaries.” ~ Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
That’s the hardest part of it, this feeling that everything about it is wrong. It’s not simply sad, it’s not just terrible; but every fiber groans with the inescapable feeling that, with this boy’s death, the fabric of the world is wrenched further apart. I realize that must sound pretty melodramatic, or sound like it should incapacitate me for days, but neither is the case. The feeling of brokenness is very real and deep, yet I was able to go about the rest of the day’s work (the ease of it is frightening sometimes). The feeling of wrong-ness has not left. I'm guessing it isn’t meant to.
His mother collapsed on the floor in almost melodic wailing, as women here mourn death, and the crowd that had been forming around the bed continued to grow. I wondered what the other mothers there on the crowded ward with their kids must have felt. But these women are no strangers to suffering. Watching this death, I was struck very powerfully by what a broken world we live in. Everything about it was just wrong – this is not how the world is supposed to be, this is now how lives are supposed to go.
Seeing the horror of death firsthand and being confronted with the brokenness of the world brought to mind something I’d just read.
“Who then are the mourners? ... They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm of peace there is neither death nor tears and who ache whenever they see someone crying tears over death. The mourners are aching visionaries.” ~ Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
That’s the hardest part of it, this feeling that everything about it is wrong. It’s not simply sad, it’s not just terrible; but every fiber groans with the inescapable feeling that, with this boy’s death, the fabric of the world is wrenched further apart. I realize that must sound pretty melodramatic, or sound like it should incapacitate me for days, but neither is the case. The feeling of brokenness is very real and deep, yet I was able to go about the rest of the day’s work (the ease of it is frightening sometimes). The feeling of wrong-ness has not left. I'm guessing it isn’t meant to.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Recovery
The boy in this picture is Kagadisa, a wonderful little guy about whom I've blogged before. I saw him today when he back to the health center to continue his treatment for TB, and as part of his follow-up as a nutrition inpatient. He's also the emaciated boy in the picture from a few posts back. With treatment for his TB and intensive nutrition support as an inpatient, he's gone from a boy who just about dead, to a healthy, smiling, curious, friendly boy. His recovery is a transformation that never ceases to amaze and that I thought was worth sharing, in picture form. His story is the kind that make the stresses and difficulties of working here seem insignificant; the kind that not all children are lucky enough to have; and the kind that make me see the world as sublimly beautiful.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Law and Order
This week one of the mission houses broken into while its occupants were at someone else's house for dinner. The rebar grating over a window was cut, and some money, two flashlights, bagel chips, eggs, flour, sugar, a key, and nail polish were stolen (the bagel chips being probably the biggest loss). The nice thing is that, in general, people here don't have use for a computer, so the laptop was left undistrubed on the table. We talked with a few community members and reported to the police (whose response was... "sorry"). We quickly had a posse of people examining the window, ooh-ing and ahh-ing, very upset that someone would do this. With the Myhres and Pierces away, I became the de facto point man (read: man) for the whole process. The next day, I set about trying to get a new lock (to replace the one to which the key was stolen) and secure the window, and no one felt that there was ever a chance that those responsible would be caught.
But yesterday evening, as I was preparing dinner with a Ugandan friend, I heard a voice at my door shout, with great urgency and seriousness, "Nathan! Come!" I ran to my door, to find a crowd of people leading a boy up to my house with his hands tied. After seeing a group of teenage boys distributing money among themselves, one of my neighbors had run to tell someone, and they apprehended one of them, who in turn confessed to taking part in the break-in. Various members of the crowd were shouting about what we should do with him, and I felt entirely out of my element, as not only could I not understand what we being said, but I also have no idea how these things would be handled in this culture, and how my actions will be viewed by the community. In the end, we decided to delay taking him to the police, first meeting with the parents, registering the case with the village chairman (who wasn't around, of course), and trying to gather the other two boys.
Of course, by the time today rolled around, the two other boys had fled to Congo, putting a significant hole in our plan. It's been a struggle to try to figure out how to handle the situation. I find myself trying to walk the line between ensuring that there are real consequences and showing grace. I don't want to be too harsh, especially because I think that we Americans are already seen that way sometimes, but of course I also want justice, I want these boys to know that their actions are unacceptable, and I want the community to know that this isn't something that people can get away with. Being a newcomer in the culture makes it really hard for me to know how to handle it. It does make me think about how justice should be doled out (both here and in general), and how to gauge what is truly best for the community, the mission, the ones who were robbed, and the boys who took from them. Is it taking a hard line or being lenient? Sometimes I feel like these are a few teenage punks who probably just need to get beat up a few times to learn a lesson. But then I think about the lives they have lived, that we all make mistakes, and I try think about what doesn't just let me get revenge, but what teaches them and might change them. Does treating them as harshly as possible change them? It might. And it might also help deter theft in the community at large. But then again, it could just harden them, and it's possible that being more gentle is what will really impact them. Then I realize that, as a cultural outsider, I probably have no idea what I'm talking about.
Several things made this whole experience classic:
The response of the police. The police will not even leave their headquarters without getting some money out of it.
A 10,000 shilling note was taken from the boy as evidence, and it was said that we needed to present the evidence to the chairman and the police. However, two of the men who actually caught the boy and brought him to me told someone that they felt they should be paid for their services, so a community member who was holding the money (which is, remember, important evidence), has someone make change for him, and gives them 5,000. Today, he presents me with the 5,000 note (which the boy was never in possesion of) as the evidence. I almost burst out laughing when I heard him tell me the story.
The other two boys fled to Congo. I'm picturing an action movie with criminals taking refuge in a volatile country, and an elaborate scheme (undoubtedly involving Jason Bourne) to extradite them across a national border. I don't think it will be nearly that exciting (nor such a kickstart to my career as an action hero), and we'll probably just wait for them to return eventually.
But yesterday evening, as I was preparing dinner with a Ugandan friend, I heard a voice at my door shout, with great urgency and seriousness, "Nathan! Come!" I ran to my door, to find a crowd of people leading a boy up to my house with his hands tied. After seeing a group of teenage boys distributing money among themselves, one of my neighbors had run to tell someone, and they apprehended one of them, who in turn confessed to taking part in the break-in. Various members of the crowd were shouting about what we should do with him, and I felt entirely out of my element, as not only could I not understand what we being said, but I also have no idea how these things would be handled in this culture, and how my actions will be viewed by the community. In the end, we decided to delay taking him to the police, first meeting with the parents, registering the case with the village chairman (who wasn't around, of course), and trying to gather the other two boys.
Of course, by the time today rolled around, the two other boys had fled to Congo, putting a significant hole in our plan. It's been a struggle to try to figure out how to handle the situation. I find myself trying to walk the line between ensuring that there are real consequences and showing grace. I don't want to be too harsh, especially because I think that we Americans are already seen that way sometimes, but of course I also want justice, I want these boys to know that their actions are unacceptable, and I want the community to know that this isn't something that people can get away with. Being a newcomer in the culture makes it really hard for me to know how to handle it. It does make me think about how justice should be doled out (both here and in general), and how to gauge what is truly best for the community, the mission, the ones who were robbed, and the boys who took from them. Is it taking a hard line or being lenient? Sometimes I feel like these are a few teenage punks who probably just need to get beat up a few times to learn a lesson. But then I think about the lives they have lived, that we all make mistakes, and I try think about what doesn't just let me get revenge, but what teaches them and might change them. Does treating them as harshly as possible change them? It might. And it might also help deter theft in the community at large. But then again, it could just harden them, and it's possible that being more gentle is what will really impact them. Then I realize that, as a cultural outsider, I probably have no idea what I'm talking about.
Several things made this whole experience classic:
The response of the police. The police will not even leave their headquarters without getting some money out of it.
A 10,000 shilling note was taken from the boy as evidence, and it was said that we needed to present the evidence to the chairman and the police. However, two of the men who actually caught the boy and brought him to me told someone that they felt they should be paid for their services, so a community member who was holding the money (which is, remember, important evidence), has someone make change for him, and gives them 5,000. Today, he presents me with the 5,000 note (which the boy was never in possesion of) as the evidence. I almost burst out laughing when I heard him tell me the story.
The other two boys fled to Congo. I'm picturing an action movie with criminals taking refuge in a volatile country, and an elaborate scheme (undoubtedly involving Jason Bourne) to extradite them across a national border. I don't think it will be nearly that exciting (nor such a kickstart to my career as an action hero), and we'll probably just wait for them to return eventually.
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