I’m writing for a nice couch in Kampala. I’m on my way to the beach in Kenya for a SP ministry retreat- one of the many perks of my lifestyle/job.
Today I had a perfectly normal Saturday. I went out for breakfast, ordered a bacon, mushroom cheese omlette with fresh bread, an iced mocha and a nice hot cup of tea. I finished a book I started yesterday. It felt right. I walked carefree with no agenda, no meeting, no to-do list. My normal routine for Saturday’s is far different. I normally meet with my 5 supervisors on Saturday mornings and they tend to be either super depressing or mildly encouraging. Depressing because I always find out how much work we (interpret I) have to do and how we should have been doing this work weeks ago; mildly encouraging because sometimes I get more positive reports from the field. However, as I buttered my freshly baked brown bread with real butter and real jam I was not in such a meeting. My lovely new intern, Diane, was shouldering that burden. No complaints, no “I need this”, no “we should be doing…”. Just me, a book and steamed milk. Bliss. I don’t even like steamed milk, but it’s the thought of being around it.
The book I finished was written about Uganda. Reading books about Africa, while in Africa is usually pretty great. You connect far more with the content, though the truths written in those little black letters can hit home in a far deeper way. The book is called The worst date ever. It’s about a Hollywood celebrity “journalist” who couldn’t take the crap of LA anymore so she fled to where else, Africa, specifically northern Uganda- to follow up on the terrible realities of the LRA, Africa corruption and the aid system I somehow feel apart of. I can’t fully recommend it for her choice words and not so Christian viewpoints, but I did enjoy the read as I spent 10 hours in a land cruiser yesterday and as I sipped my tea this morning. It did reinforce some internal dialogues I am having about my work, the program I manage and the aid system my life is so deeply apart of. Not easy internal dialogues I assure you. It’s always encouraging to see or read about people who get angry about injustice while so many other just blindly accept it or turn a blind eye. Christianity gives hope in hopeless situations or the seemingly hopeless situation of Africa, in Uganda, in Karamoja. I don’t know how secular people cope. Booze I guess.
Next month I need to tell SP if I want to spend another year forcing shepherds to be farmers. Wait no, I am teaching hungry people how to grow their own food and I am improving their terrible lives to make them less terrible. The work is brutal, another year of stress? The problem is I do like Karamoja. It’s beautiful, currently colder and rainy and dramatic. I have friends there, not great friends, but people I can spend time with. They’re crazy and significantly different (i.e. European), but there is a sense of community, however shallow it is. I love my trucks, my little monster of a dog and the freedom I possess as a white aid worker in a poor, rural setting (am I a terrible person?). Plus, Pizza nights on Friday are really kicking off. How thrilling my life is. At least I can watch United get their 20th title this year.
I’m applying for a job in Liberia. Same job, different place. I imagine same problem’s, same Africa just a different side of it. Same depressing realities. Same internal dialogues. Not sure if I want to go or not (or if I will have the choice).
Going to Nepal in October. I need to get out of Africa for a little while. I want to be cold, to see Everest and do some adventuring. A new stamp in my new, boringly stiff, navy, computer chipped passport. I miss my old one with the picture that made me look like a 12 year old.
I NEED adventure. I need to be terrified with my toes dangling over the Zambezi river, ankles secured by a stretchy and hopefully trustworthy bungee. I need to be dangerously close to monstrous Elephants or sleeping in a tent within earshot of lions. I need to go 125 mph on a motorcycle. Need or want? Not too sure. Without challenge or adrenalin or fear, I feel pretty dead. I feel dead behind my desk, staring at a computer screen with excel spreadsheets. I wish I didn’t know how to type, or insert formulas in excel or reply to emails. But isn’t living in Africa an adventure? Sort of, but after years here it really isn’t.
The good news is I am one student loan payment away from being completely liberated from The Man. Thanks to this year of stress and tension headaches I will be debt free, and hopefully freer to blow my massive (sarcasm) bi-monthly paycheck on adventure. Though, as an aid worker constantly reminded of poverty and inequality is this spending plan okay? Stinking Theology of Poverty class, stinking teachings of Christ. How do you have your cake and eat it too? Perhaps I can think about it as I sit on my beach chair on the Kenyan coast, eating 5 meals a day sleeping under the blankets because I am cranking the AC, just because I can. Then I will be refreshed and able to continue working with my 10,000 hungry K-jongs just a few hundred miles from millions of hungry, famine struck east Africans.
Stinking internal (but blog published) dialogues.
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