I'm the One in Need...

I'm going to take a moment to be totally honest here. This has been the hardest week emotionally for me since I first found myself on a trans-Atlantic flight bound for Europe and then Africa. I think it started when I got into a bit of a confrontation with another researcher where I was left attempting to justify what I was doing here. I'm not particularly well spoken in this arena anyway, as I'm not really confrontational and never have a very good come-back for someone who is criticizing my work. This guy had a bone to pick with me, my work, my advisor, and the whole damned American system of higher education. It left me a little stunned. It isn't the first time I've been under fire for my dissertation topic, but it is certainly the first time I've experienced such a vicious attack without warning. It was especially bad when he began reminding me that I wasn't doing any good by being here. That I was incapable of helping anyone through my research. By the time he'd finished with me, I was sitting on the front porch of the Acholi Ber in tears with some of my good-natured research friends trying to cheer me up.

There was a lot of talk about being one drop in an ocean...about making a difference in one life and allowing that to be enough. But there was a lot of agreement that sometimes we all just feel completely impotent here. So you fix one thing for one person...there's a lot of need here. A bottle of Ibuprofin costs two weeks wages and people live in pain every day for lack of a simple anti-inflammatory medication (and that's just the easy-to-fix stuff). I found out the other night that Eunice (my 23-year-old Acholi-Luo teacher) lost her husband last year to malaria. MALARIA. She's a single mother working 14 hour days, 7 days a week, because she's determined to pay her son's school fees (which are somewhere close to half of her monthly take home pay).

This is just one story. 

And this is not to romanticize any of this. These people are not "suffering nobly" or anything like that. The men, women, and children I've met are simply proving the resilience of the human spirit and the ability of a person to adapt to a bad situation. Their ability to maintain hope and happiness in the face of what I consider to be disaster (and they would just tell me "is life") has left me stunned. And humbled. Extremely humbled.

My perspective on Northern Uganda has made a 180 degree turn since I've started this journey almost 7 weeks ago. I have come to realize that this place doesn't need me. These people don't need me. This situation doesn't need me. I am the one in need of all of these people and everything they've taught me. I'm trying more and more to place my perspective less and less on what I see -- trying to understand how the people I meet see their lives and understand why they're still hopeful. I've gained perspective and family by being here and I bring home so much more than I could ever have given (not that I haven't tried!).

So, my advice to those who would come here attempting to single-handedly save the day...check your ego at the door. This isn't a place to come to "find yourself" and its not a place to come to pontificate high-minded liberal idealism. This is a place to come, help where you can, and learn. LEARN that life is not about any of the things we thought it was and -- more importantly -- realize that you are not the central theme of this equation.

But more importantly...learn that these people are just like any other people anywhere. There are good ones and bad ones. There are happy ones and sad ones. There is suffering, yes, but there is hope. And as Pollyanna as I dare to sound I'm going to say that I have hope for this place.

And I just hope that I get to come back sooner rather than later.

PS...Mango season makes the world go round.