We have a saying
out here on the east side of Uganda. “First you stop caring, then you stop
feeling” It comes about from dealing with the darkness, danger, and human
suffering that is part of living in a nation like Uganda. It is not meant as a serious expression. It’s more of a dark commentary on the
psychological aspects of what it means to have this job, “The toughest job you’ll
ever love”. You learn to look past all
the things that you cannot help which inhabit your existence. It’s how you travel unrestrained in an overstuffed
taxi speeding down a torn and crowded road, knowing one small mishap could be
your death. It’s how you run through
traffic when the drivers are not liable and care little, then continue walking
without a response even in thought when you get clipped. It’s how you walk past a dozen street children
digging through garbage on your way to a restaurant. You can’t do any good if you go home every
night and cry. Giving all your money
away to the point of your own poverty will only hurt you and perpetuate a cycle
of dependence which is crippling development.
If you want to
make progress, affect change, be anything more than an economic stimulus. You need to pick your battles. Know what change can be made. Know what interventions cause you to lose
credibility. As a teacher, I see caneings
every day; teachers beating children, shaming; demoralizing them for what is
often little reason. If I were to stand
up and try to stop these activities, I may well be successful in some small
degree. They might cease in my presence
or just wait till I am gone. But it
would be the end of my effective service in my community. They would think I am week, out of touch with
their culture, trying to impose foreign values on the discipline they “know”
their students need. I am not here to
protect my own sensibilities. A Peace
Corps Volunteer persists through hardship of mind and body in an attempt to
make a difference. So you take the slow
route, the only route.
You pick up a
hoe, go outside, and turn over the earth around your house. You do this because it is what those around
you do. It is there lively hood, a
traditional way of life which goes beyond memory. With sweat laden brow and blistered palm you
great your neighbors as they walk past.
Sowing seeds, you tend to their growth weeding, watering,
harvesting. It’s not about being
successful it’s about effort.
Understand your
best work is done sitting under a mango tree, sharing a cup of tea or ear of roasted
maize. Ask as many questions as you
answer. Open your mind, quit judging those
around you. Your moral sense, ideas of
right and wrong, understanding of appropriate, image of the world and how
people fit into it, these are just one interpretation on existence, an
interpretation which may not be shared by those in your village. If there is such a thing as validity in such
matters, that judgment is beyond me.
Every day you
walk, greet, talk, share, laugh, and grow.
You do this without judging, condemning, or acting paternal. You can never become one of them, but you can
become accepted. Perhaps, after six
months or more you will feel it. People
smile at your presence. Not because you
are a symbol of pride for the community or the money you represent. They smile with the warmth of friendship and
trust. You cease to be an interloper, a
foreigner who does not understand or accept.
Somehow you have become a member of the community, a part of the
tribe. Reaching this point is a triumph
in its own right.
This
is when the subtle work begins. Sitting
one on one with a friend sharing a moment, you bring up a subject like alternative
discipline. In your time with them you
have handled your class your own way.
Yes there have been difficulties, but there has also been success. You have adapted to your students and they
have adapted to you. It’s just a
conversation. You are not saying one way
is better. They are simply
different. Perhaps there is some value
in different. If there is one thing I do
know it is you cannot tell someone anything and expect them to take it to heart. All the best lessons are learned through self
discovery, when the genesis of action comes from within. This may not be the fastest way to affect
change. But I do believe there is power in
friendship and mutual understanding. You
do this because you do care, because you still feel, even if you can’t feel it
all at once.
It’s a hell of a
thing really. When pity and fear are
replaced with understanding and acceptance, the mind becomes open to joys it
would never have known. It allows you walk
down a dirty poverty ridden street in a torn city while you bite into the sweat
juicy flesh of a floret of jack fruit and have the beautiful thought “this must
be what sunshine taste like”. You are
free to sit in the taxi feeling the wind on your face that smells of charcoal
fires and rain, enjoying the golden light of sunset casting the shadows of
clouds on mountains of emerald and scarlet.
After all there is a heart behind every hand which holds a cane in
violence. If you allow yourself, you may
just find that heart. And find yourself
better off with a friend.
I was staying in
Mbale one night when I was awoke at 2:30 in the morning to the sound of
screaming. A man was being beaten. The impact of a cane clearly resonated. The
cries were broken by the fluid building in his throat. It went on for an hour. Eventually the screams stopped, but the
impacts of the cane still cut the night air.
I sat there knowing I was safe, locked in a room, bars on the
windows. No one even knew I was
there. And I listened; it was all I
could do. My reach could not affect this.
I don’t know what
happened, who was involved or why. I
didn’t sleep anymore that night. Instead
I stayed up and wrote this. As much as
you want to be disconnected at times, no matter how much you need not to feel,
the pounding waves of the world will eventually crash on the shores of your
heart.
