Flashback to the KLA

Day 11 and 13, June 5 and 7, Uganda. From Sharon (being in PE stricken down by sickness while Brian goes to our game :( has given me some time to offer a flashback)

After our long and arduous bus trip, we arrived in Kampala where our dear host Mama Flora picked us up from the bus station and took us to the monastery to meet the Brothers. We had breakfast with Mama Flora and Br. Alfred, then went to Mama Flora's house to rest up from our journey. Mama Flora, as she is known to about everyone in Kampala, or so it seemed, raised eight children and a stepson, the youngest of whom is now 20 years old and at university. She also takes in just about anyone off the street who needs a place to stay, including many Sudanese refugees who fled to Kampala when the violence in Southern Sudan was at its height, asking for nothing in return. For a while after we arrived, it was pretty unclear who exactly lived in the simple ranch house - there were always a few of her "real" children around, plus two girls (both around 18) who kept the house and looked after the young children. The children while we were there consisted of Augustine, an 18 month old belly of a child whose mother was one of the residents at the brothers' home (I.e. was mentally or physically disabled and unable to care for him), and Sophie, the most adorable 3 year old you've ever seen, and whose story was never quite clear to me. The house had a simple family room (with a TV we would later watch the first games of the WC on) and dining table, a small kitchen, three bedrooms, and a single bathroom with a toilet, a faucet that hung from the wall that served as the shower, and no light. Cold showers in the dark at 515am became the new standard. On the plus side, after showering, you had to use those squeegy brooms like they have at swimming pools to push all the water from all over the room into the drain in the corner, which is every bit as exciting as it looked when you were five and jealously watched the lifeguards do so (or possibly that was just me? Regardless, the third world is so much more fun when you take joy in the little things).

After a rest, we hung out with Flora's fourth biological child, Paul (what a great name), who works for MTN, one of the major cell phone companies in Africa. It is one of the biggest sponsors of the World Cup and probably the biggest carrier in Uganda, by a long shot. He seemed a little embarrassed by his job, he "just" works for costumer service, but seemed relieved when we assured him that many recent US university grads get similar jobs in their 20's. Also luckily for him, he was hanging out with the two of us, who are huge nerds and genuinely interested in the comparative economics of cell phone service marketing. (A significant difference in Africa, is that everyone pays as you go....and that it's still cheaper than in the US.) We then went over to the monastery to meet our soon-to-be godchildren, and have evening prayer and dinner with the brothers. For you Catholics out there, they do the Liturgy of the Hours at 6am, noon, and 5pm every day (in addition to daily Mass at 620am). It was a really nice thing, especially as we started working at the Apostlate and you really needed some spiritual guidance. Plus the sound of 80 African men singing is a really soothing sound. I'm fairly certain that's the sound most effective for running off the devil, should you ever find yourself in such a situation.

Before dinner, we got a tour of the grounds from Br. Dominic, one of the Professed Brothers, which means he wears the blue sash with his habit and has finished his formal formation, a process that normally takes 5-6 years. Young men start as "junior aspirants," working on the missions, attending classes, and living the monastic life (apparently monks are not just cloistered orders, there are some, like the Missionaries of the Poor, who are "active" monks and have missions in the community). After 9 months, the aspirants have a three week "home stay," during which time they return to their families and await a letter from MOP that indicates whether or not they have been chosen to continue in formation. At that time, they decide for themselves whether or not they wish to return to Kampala (they are under no obligation to do so, and any Brother, at any point, can walk away from the order). Later in the week, Br. Alfred explained to us a little bit more what they were looking for in brothers and while strict and absolute in some ways (they don't take people who want to be priests, even though some brothers are eventually ordained, and they don't take those who want to continue advanced studies, for example), it makes complete sense when you understand that the mission is wholely and wholly dedication to the poor....and how taxing a calling that is. Once the aspirants return, they continue as before but now as "senior aspirants," who wear the habit, but with a tan sash to indicate their continuing formal formation. Each of these classes lives in large dorm bays with bunk beds housing 20-40 brothers per room. After some amount of time (1-2 years? I couldn't quite nail down the timeline), the brothers move to the Novitiate, a segregated living area next to the monastery with their own chapel, dining room, and living spaces. There they spend the final and most intense two years of their formal formation. We saw all these areas, as well as the animals kept - cows pigs, pigeons, chickens, monkeys. There were only two monkeys; a third had to be put down after it ferociously attempted to bite off a finger.

Dinner with the brothers was delicious (credit the Carribebean roots of the order for the plethora of spices used) and we got to hang out with From. Hayden, an absolutely delightful enthusiastic Trini of a man. We heard about his recent trip to Jamaica where many leaders of the Order met with a representative from the Vatican to explain their work in an attempt to get a relationship directly with the Vatican (the word is escaping me right now). The order currently must work through each local diocese, so this development would make them much like Opus Dei, but considerably less creepy. He also brought news of how impressed the Vatican was with the simple lifestyle of the Brothers - even Fr. Hayden (and, in fact, the head of the entire order, who lives in Janaica) lives in the dorm style rooms with no privacy and they travel in the beds of trucks that have been outfitted with benches.

You've already heard of our baptismal adventures from Sunday, so I'll skip straight to Monday, our first at the Apostolate. After Mass, meditation, breakfast, travel to the home, and morning prayers, it was probably 830 by the time we started "work," even though we'd been up since a little after 5. Since Brian had worked with the brothers on Jamaica before, he had a better idea of what was to come, but I really had no idea. What I did know was that MOP basically took in anyone that had been abandoned by their families and society. In the poor societies of the third world, this translates to the elderly, the orphaned, and the mentally and physically disabled of all ages. We were assigned to work with the girls and Brian pulled me aside before going in to let me know that there was no shame in stepping outside for a few minutes if it got overwhelming; he mentioned he'd do so a few times in Jamaica. I was thankful for the counsel, but egotistical as I am, doubted I would need it - I worked with amputees, I wanted to be a doctor, and I rode the Georgia Ave bus for goodness sake - as far as blood, bodily disfunction, dismemberment, and crazy people go, I figured there were few things I hadn't seen. Plus, I'm now a soldier in the greatest Army in the world. In the words of our dear friend Josh, I'll take a break when I'm done.

The reality was that I was a bit underprepared. This wasn't my initial reaction, but apparently a volunteer from Iran who stayed with Mama Flora and worked there for three months later confessed that on her first day she thought she had entered Hell. That wasn't my initial thought (although it might have occurred to me later), but if some good Christian volunteer reacted that way, you can maybe begin to imagine what it might have been like. The dorm was dark and crowded - the place was filled with bunk beds not more than about 18 inches apart. Those were mostly empty, as the able children had already left for school. On two large mattresses were our charges for the day - about 20-30 girls, ranging in age from infancy to about 12 or 13, but none looking older than about 8. They were extremely thin for the most part, many legs outrageously so, to the point where you wondered how such legs supported them. The answer was by and large that they did not - few of the girls were capable of walking under their own power, because of mental or physical impairments...or both. Only two were capable of telling you they had to go to the bathroom and then, as I found out the hard way later in the week, not in English. The rest of them simply urinated or defecated right where they were, which contributed a strong urine smell to the area (don't worry, you get used to that) and also resulted in a prodigious number of clothes being used every day (I would find out exactly how much a prodigious quantity was when I wad assigned to a morning of hand washing clothes later in the week). When we arrived in the dorm, the girls were a huddled naked mass of bodies on the two beds, as they'd just been "showered" ("rinsed" is probably a more appropriate word). After dressing, which consists of putting whatever combination of shirt/dress and shorts will fit on the girl and be pleasing to her sense of aesthetics (some were hilariously picky), you picked her up and moved her outside to the porch for play/physical therapy.

My first task of the day - take Charity for a walk with the walker around the porch - ended in collassal failure. Let it be known that Charity is NOT capable of informing you of her need to urinate and we both ended up standing dumbfounded in a puddle of her urine as I wondered why no one had instructed me what to do in this situation. A brother soon came to my rescue and whisked poor Charity off. I returned to the group on the porch feeling pretty useless and still uninformed as to proper a-resident-just-peed-all-over-herself-and-everything-else standard operating procedure.

By this time, Brian was deftly walking Rachel, the most adorable child in the entire world, and soon to be our favorite, across the porch (sans walker!), and I resolved to stop feeling sorry for myself and my ineptitude as a volunteer (I perhaps have a bit of a competitive streak); I decided to stop sucking and start being awesome instead. My next task was simply to "spot" Rita as she strengthened her legs by standing while holding on to the side of the porch. Perhaps this was more fitted to my (in)abilities because I was much more successful at making sure a stationery child did not suddenly topple over than I was at walking one. I also graduated to Honors Spotting, which consisted of correcting her foot position and posture when she started slouching. My most advanced maneuver (AP Spotting?) was deploying the Weeks family patented "bird call" sound and hand motion when she started crying. Luckily my family is really funny (or perhaps just funny looking) because Rita found that move HILARIOUS and instantly cheered up and started laughing every time.

Monday was also our first introduction to snack time and lunch for the girls. They are each given a slice of bread around 930 or so and a bowl of whatever is for lunch around 11. While mostly a straightforward venture, some of the girls don't have enough motor skills to feed themselves and so have to be fed (those volunteers doing the feeding get to use a spoon....everyone else uses their hands. It's unclear to me how i would've eaten this meal with my hands, so i was pretty impressed). Additionally, there are a few out of control (or just really really hungry? Or both?) girls who would go around and steal food from the others. Two particularly bad offenders had to be tied by the ankle to a post on the porch with a t-shirt so that they didn't wreck complete havoc. And they still managed to wreck some. I was feeding one of the more difficult girls and had to take to tilting her head back so that she was forced to open her mouth. As long as it took to finish that meal and as frustrating as it was, it's an incredible special and satisfying feeling to be such a fundamental part of someone's nourishment. A bit difficult to really describe fully.

After lunch, the girls go to bed for a nap and five thousand schoolchildren invade  the home for lunch. Probably only like 100-150 kids, but it feels like much much more. They DEVOUR the food and also can be guilty of stealing from one another. Some of these kids live at the Apostolate and some don't...I guess just would not be getting a meal otherwise. I helped put out food for them and Brian was in a special area for what looked like the youngest children. When I ventured over there, I saw a boy, about 5 or 6, with arms that were cut off above his elbow, happily and amazingly eating his lunch with a long spoon (again, everyone else ate with their hands). I watched in amazement for a while and then Brian told me that apparently the boy cries if you offer/try to feed him, because he's so intent on doing it himself.

Sometime after lunch, around 2 or 230, the morning shift of Brothers returns to the monastery and the evening shift comes. We decided to leave then too, since we needed to buy our return bus tickets to Nairobi for the following week. We headed downtown on a bouda bouda, one of the most common forms of transport in Uganda, which is a motorcycle taxi. You hail a strange man in the streets on a motorcycle, haggle a price for your destintion, and then hop on behind him. Don't worry, they have extended back seats so can take two at a time. Crammed in between a Ugandan stranger in front and Brian behind, I wondered what the protocol for who or what to hold to was.....

After running a few errands downtown (including booking a whitewater rafting trip down the Nile for Friday - HOORAY!), we took a bouda bouda back to the monastery. At times it was exhilarating and exciting like a roller coaster, as we weaved in and out of traffic and around potholes, and spent about 50% of the time racing down the street on the WRONG side of the median, only correcting ourselves when on-coming traffic looked particularly menacing. Then, after a few seconds of europhia, I would remember that I was on a motorcycle of a stranger in Kampala and should probably be paying better attention to the scenes from my life flashing before my eyes. When we got fairly close to the monastery, there was absolute and total gridlock as a truck blasting music from its truck bed and selling CD's literally parked intself in the middle of a significant intersection, completely stopping traffic in four directions. Cars were so piled up on top of each other (figuratively, of course) that there wasn't even 18 inches for our motorcycle to squeeze by anyone. It was sheer madness (a phrase I've come to use often in Africa is "the height of insanity") and took some time, yelling, and cajoling to figure out.

That evening we went to prayers with the Brothers, then tea and dinner at Mama Flora's. After dinner, we hung out with Mama's third child, Hillary, who had just finished law school. Hillary is a male name in East Africa, which explains the confusion we witnessed in Jikaze over what former President Clinton's first name was (some kids kept telling Brian they loved Hillary Clinton. We were impressed they knew who the Secretary of State was, and then realized they meant Bill when they said something about him being the former President). Hillary was a really friendly outgoing guy and was very interested in the economic crisis in the US, healthcare reform (everyone in Africa has heard of it, but no one understands it, much like the vast majority of Americans. Including us.), and differences between the US and Uganda/Kenya. At first we couldn't come up with any that had really surprised us, but then we thought of a list - no need for prescriptions, police don't have guns or cars, there's regular electricity rationing that is unannounced, matatus, bouda boudas, the condition of the roads (horrible, by the way, potholes an entire lane of traffic wide even in Kampala, the nation's capital), how cheap fruit is (East Africans are comically amazed at how expensive fruit is in the US), the Ugandan president who has been in power for almost 25 years and just ignores the results of elections which vote him out, and on and on. It was a really interesting conversation and the beginning of our great friendship with Hillary.

We went to bed exhausted, but excited to work a full day at the Apostolate on Tuesday.