This is Ugandan social work

Earlier this week I went on my first home visit to a family out in one of the villages. The purpose of the visit was to prepare one of the four children to meet their sponsor the next day in Kampala.  I needed to make sure she had something good to wear and also a gift to give to the sponsor. It had been pouring rain that day so the car I was taking was not able to maneuver through the thick bush and mud of where this girl lived. So myself and two other women got out to walk up a mile-long hill through the mud. As I was dodging sticky puddles of mud my supervisor chuckled, “This isn’t American social work anymore Ali, welcome to Africa.” It was like she read my mind. I was thinking about how social work in the United States is accompanied by clean dress, paved roads  (or at least semi-smooth), air-conditioning, and case files on computer systems. I couldn’t help but wonder how in the world I ended up in this place.

When we arrived to the one-room, mud-bricked home with no door and chickens running everywhere, our feet looked like we have been playing in the mud all day. As soon as we walked up to the family the woman tells me in broken English, “you are welcome here”. She then prepares a wash basin for me to clean my shoes and feet. As I begin to remove my shoes she then proceeds to wash my feet. I almost cried. I have been here long enough to understand that for someone to even give you water is a big deal, because there is no running water and you only get water when it rains--and it's dry season. So she is using her precious water to wash MY feet. She then escorts me into her home and places a straw mat on the floor for us to sit and we begin to converse. She does not speak English well so I have a translator, but language is really not as big of a barrier as it may seem. I felt like I was having a normal conversation. As we were done conversing, she goes outside and comes back with a giant bag of Avocados (fresh from the tree!) and hands them to us. It is African hospitality to give gifts whenever one has visitors so she gave us a large portion of her food for the day. Everything in me wanted to resist and tell her that she should keep it, but I am also learning that giving is a fundamental principle here. As we excited our home, she escorted us all the way down the mile-long road in the pouring rain—another way African’s show hospitality. I cried on the car ride home because I felt like I just encountered the character of Christ.  I also could not get over how I had learned about African culture and African people in my first home visit. Americans, I, have much to learn from my African brothers and sisters. Just about what is means to be human.

I want everyone to know that Africa is not deprived. Sure, the people I work with make AT MOST 66 cents a day and live in poverty and don’t have the luxury of even running water and electricity, but they are not incomplete. The African puts their value in who they are in the context of their community, not in the self. Because they have EACHOTHER and their Lord, they are full. I do not say this naively, I have witnessed it. The reason we spend our lives chasing happiness is because we are trying to find it within ourselves, and we go through big houses, large paychecks, and luxurious toys to do so.  But what has every single person in the history of the world found in this life? Emptiness, despair, loneliness.

"The isolated self is an abstraction. We become persons only in and through our relations with other persons. The individual self has no independent existence which gives it the power to enter into relationship with other selves. Only through living intercourse with other selves can it become a self at all."

 It is when we realize that we are part of something so much bigger than what is inside us that we can truly be complete.

Two weeks in this place and I’m already changed.

Ali

Adapting

I have now been in Uganda for just over a week but it feels like it’s been months. It’s been easy to make friends; you talk to someone once and then you have a solid conversation every time thereafter. The first step I took onto African soil was quickly followed by tears—because I just couldn’t believe I was here. It was also at that moment my role as a citizen in a country had changed to foreigner, and I was becoming a learner.

Mukono, Uganda on top of Monkey Hill

I sleep under a bed net—Malaria is real. There isn’t toilet paper around, you have to buy your own and carry it with you. Bathrooms are referred to as “the toilet”, and I have very rarely gone to the bathroom in an actually toilet, most are holes in the ground. There is also no air conditioning and showing your knees is extremely immodest.  Hot water is also not around—cold showers all day, every day. Forget throwing your laundry in the washer and doing other things because washers and dryers don’t exist. It’s all hand washing clothes and boy will I have a strong lower back soon! Time is also not a factor in Ugandan culture. It is more important to say hello and spend time with your friends than it is to be on time anywhere.  Americans place value on a person based on how much they can get done in a certain amount of time; I have needed to abandon this mindset.

Road walking home

I have also started my internship working at Compassion International in a rural town called Kisoga. And boy is it rural! It’s a 45 minute drive to where cars are stared at because they are few and far between. I am working in Compassion’s Child Development Sponsorship Program. Every child that is sponsored through Compassion International must attend certain programs and meet certain requirements, all of this happens at this local location. If they do not, for whatever reason, they are at risk of getting kicked out of the program. My case loads consists of those kids who are at risk of being deported from the program. I will be doing lots of home, school, and community visits to talk with the child, figure out what is going on, and figure out a way to keep them sponsored. There are many barriers in this, one being most people in rural Uganda are very poor and don’t speak English. Secondly, I’m white, and let me assure you that some of these people have only seen a handful of whites in their lifetimes.  I am also the only white in the agency.  I have consciously not often thought of my skin color until now. This job is intimidating in some ways but exciting in others because it puts a whole different perspective on social work.

In just a few days I will be moving in with a family for two weeks in Mukono and then commuting to Kisoga every day. I am starting to get used to the stares and assumptions of who I am because of my skin color. I think being a minority is a valuable experience and I will walk away with a different perspective.

First day of internship!

If I could sum up my week here in Uganda, interacting with Ugandans, adapting to the culture, working at Compassion, I have come to the conclusion that at the end of my four months, in a very positive way, I will be a changed person. I couldn't be more excited to see who that person becomes.

Please continue to pray for adaptability and relationships here—for these things are the foundation of being effective in a cross-cultural setting. 

Ali

Preparing for the Unprepared

Today I am leaving for Entebbe, Uganda. Whoa. It has felt like a journey so far away, and now it’s finally here. I know that it’s going to bring difficulties different than what I expect, and also excitements different than I expect. That is why I am choosing to commit in my heart and in my mind to the following things:

·        - Being adaptable

·         -Continually engaging the culture even when it’s hard

·      -   Asking for humility

·        - Being myself

·        - Being intentional with relationships

·         -Never giving up

I will be living in a gated city called Mukono (northeast of the capital Kampala) and doing my senior internship as a social worker. As far as what I will be doing exactly is to be determined when I arrive in the country. This uncertainty would put most people in anx about not knowing what they’re doing, but it quite oppositely excites me—because even if I knew what I was doing, I still wouldn’t really know what I was doing. Flying across the country by myself, not knowing anyone, and entering in to a radically different environment is what I live for. There isn’t much in the world that excites me more than uncertain, wild and adventurous opportunities. All that to say, I’m ecstatic about going to Africa.

I realize it would be easy, and common, for me to have a mindset proud of my education and believing Uganda needs my skill set , but I would be foolish to think that Africa needs me. The truth is that I need Africa more than ever. To teach and mold me into someone who values people first, and that “stuff” is not what defines us. To get me out of my ethnocentric thinking that America knows best and to get me out of my comfort zone. And to allow me to learn about a completely different culture and values, but at the same time realize Africans are human, and they are just like me.

I am thankful for the default prayers of safety and good health while I’m overseas, but I would challenge people to be paralleling those prayers with prayers of adaptability, humility, and adversity—because this is where true growth happens.

“Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

Wherever you would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger”

-Hillsong's Oceans

Ali