Some stories that I will find funny in the future:
We arrived to our last debrief eager for some much needed relaxation. I noticed, in my room, a line of ants marching along the length of the wall next to my bed. I am getting used to crawling things everywhere – where I sleep, where I eat, where I go to the bathroom… This line of hard workers seemed innocent enough, so I did not give them much thought and went to bed. At some point in the early hours of the morning the ant colony called in all forces in the area and began attempting their largest food excavation in history…me. When I awoke from a crawling sensation, they were positioning themselves under my head. When I jumped up and flipped my head over, ants covered the bathroom floor. After doing the “ants are trying to eat me alive” dance for a minute, I surveyed the room. The entire area was covered with ants and spiders of many different kinds. The next day I acquired some bug killer which I now carry with me wherever I go. If it crawls or flies…it dies.
In Africa, a main form of transportation is the “boda boda.” Men on bikes carry passengers where they need to go for an affordable price. It looks easy enough, so a teammate and I decided to ride one of these African bikes. This proved to be a more difficult undertaking than was originally thought. Something about the VERY tall seat and lack of breaks made it quite the challenge. On my first attempt we were riding down the street when I noticed the hundreds of Africans in the area laughing and pointing at me. I quickly came to realize that my bike had slipped out from under me, and I was lying in the street with the bike on top of me. I have the scars to prove it. On my second attempt I made it into town. When getting onto the bike to return home, I somehow did a 180 degree spin move and wound up lying on my back in the middle of the street. Both accidents have been very public, very humiliating, and have left me very dirty.
Ahh Africa…
My heart first started to stir towards Africa almost a year ago. I was randomly given a book called What is the What about a young Sudanese boy who was forced to flee from his home out of fear of being captured by the government or the resistance army that forced young boys to be soldiers. The book gives account of the lost boy’s journey from Sudan to Ethiopia, and eventually to America, that so many made. Young boys, teetering between life and death while wandering through the desert. All the while, starving, being captured, being shot by the government, falling prey to animals, suffering from disease – children caught between two sides of a war. They literally walked through hell.
I had heard of the war and even watched the “Invisible Children” video, but it was not until I read a personal account of what happened that I became eager to get involved.
I found out there was a large Sudanese Refugee population in Memphis, so I worked tutoring children in math and English during this past summer.
Now I am near to where wars have raged. We crossed over the Nile and road down a road to Lira that was previously lined with dead bodies. We are a couple of hours away from where the “Invisible Children” movie was filmed, and there is not a person around that has not been affected by war. I find myself looking into people’s faces wondering what they have lived through, what they have seen. When we arrived, I asked our Pastor contact if he could give us a more in depth history of the conflicts in Uganda. At my request, his countenance immediately changed. Pain crept into his face, and for a second he was far away. I imagine in that moment he was remembering stories of horror that I could not possibly comprehend. He did give us an account of the area’s history – including the fact that the “Invisible Children” video did not even portray the whole story. He said that actual events were far worse. The movie did not relate the severity of young children being brainwashed and forced to kill and eat their parents. It did not relate the full horror of what happened. I cannot imagine what it was actually like.
