One day in Uganda we were at church and, in typical World Race
fashion, we were called up out of the blue to give our testimonies. I told a
brief version of the story of how my parents couldn’t have children for years
so they prayed to have a child, promised to dedicate that child to serve God,
and eventually they had me and now I’m a missionary. When I got to the point of
my birth in the story, the entire church started applauding and broke out into
a spontaneous round of Happy Birthday, complete with some very rough background
playing by the keyboardist. Mind you, my birthday is in January and this was
the middle of August, but I have been wished a very happy birthday nonetheless.
My life is weird.
One day in Uganda we were heading into Kampala for the day to use
the internet. Tiffany and I took a different car than everyone else because we
needed to go to the bank before the mall. We got in the matatu (an extremely
crowded African van taxi) and began driving in the wrong direction away from
Kampala. After a couple miles we pulled into a parking lot and everyone got out
except for us. We had noticed that the matatu smelled particularly good, which
is rare for vehicles in Africa. We realized that there were about a hundred
pineapples under the seats, which the driver then asked us to help unload. So
we unloaded a whole shipment of pineapples and then we were on our way to
Kampala. My life is weird.
One day in Uganda when we arrived in the town we were going to be
living in for the month, our contacts took us to a hostel for the night until
our house was ready. Tiffany and I were sharing a room, and as we settled in we
noticed a sign listing the hostel’s rules on the wall. The first few were
pretty standard, but then we saw number four. It read as follows: “Bed wetting
is strictly prohibited. Violators will be charged up to 50% of the cost of
their stay.” In the corner of the sign was a Microsoft ClipArt graphic of two
elderly white people. My life is weird.
One day in Uganda we went to Kampala for our off day to see the
final Harry Potter movie in a theater we found online. Earlier in the day I had
gotten a hard email from a friend, so I was not in the best mood, but no one
knew that yet. We went to the East African equivalent of Walmart before the
movie theater to stock up on snacks, so our backpacks were full of food and
drinks. When we got to the movie theater the attendant tried to take our
backpacks and store them behind the counter because apparently they were not
allowed in the theater. Something inside of my head just snapped and I decided
there was absolutely no way that he was going to be taking my bag from me…think
Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents when
the woman tried to check his carry-on. I explained to him that I would be
taking my bag with me. If you know me, you know that this is way out of
character…I’m a rule follower by nature and there was a clearly posted sign
prohibiting backpacks in the theater…but that day I was not in a rule following
mood, so I persisted. Tiffany just stood there not knowing what to say as I
explained to the man that I had already had all my things stolen in Peru so I
would not be handing them over to him. “I have my laptop and camera in here,” I
told him, thinking that he would understand my desire to keep my things with
me. However, Tiffany then pointed to another sign that I had failed to read
that strictly prohibited computers or recording devices in the theater…fail.
But my persistence paid off because he finally just gave up trying to reason
with me and told us both that we could keep our bags with us. It felt like an
out of body experience to me because I’m usually so calm and rule following. I
guess everyone has their days. My life is weird.
One day in Uganda…actually everyday in Uganda…we worked at a primary
school and helped run the P.E. class. Parts of it were fun, but inevitably
everyday we eventually got to the running portion of the class. The teacher
thought it was particularly amusing to try to torture the tired white
missionaries by making us run a lot. We were less than equally amused. She
would make us play a game where we run in a circle until everyone has been
tagged, but she would always tag us first so that we had to run the entire
time. It was like we had secretly been enrolled in some kind of African fat
camp against our will. And the best part of everyday was the “100 meter dash,”
which was really more like 300 meters and it was uphill. They would pair us
with the tiny Ugandan children that were in such good shape that I would not be
the least bit surprised if I saw any one of them on TV racing in the next
Summer Olympics. They destroyed us and they were barefoot. The fun catch to
this game was that if you won your race you could be done, but if you lost you
had to race again until you won. And since there was absolutely zero chance
that we were going to be beating these children, you can imagine how many races
we had to run last month. My life is weird…and sometimes exhausting.
One day in Uganda we were doing hospital ministry at a local health
clinic. We arrived at the hospital and there was a big van with the words
Mobile Circumcision Services painted on the side. About thirty men wearing
emerald green hospital gowns were lined up outside looking appropriately
nervous. Our pastor turned to Brent and Joel and asked them with an entirely
serious look on his face, “Would you like to take a circumcision today?” They
declined. My life is weird.
One day in Uganda we were in church and they asked us to come up and
sing a few songs in English to the congregation. As we were singing, people
began dancing up to the front and stuffing money and gifts into our hands.
Apparently it’s a tradition in Uganda to give things to people who are
performing when you like what they’re doing. We put the money in the offering
plate, but then one lady came up to me and gave me a necklace. I kept singing,
but to show my gratitude I decided to put the necklace on while I was still in
front of the church…which would have been a great plan if it had fit over my
head. I tried to force it on, but it was not going to fit, so I tried to
smoothly wind it around my wrist and make it look like my plan all along. I’m
not sure anyone bought it. My life is weird.
One day in Uganda we decided to get tested for typhoid and malaria
because some of our friends had been diagnosed with them and none of us were
feeling particularly well. We walked down the street to a small local clinic
and asked to be tested. I was nervous because I have what some people might
call an extreme phobia of needles. I have fainted and/or thrown up every single
time that I’ve gotten a shot or a blood test since I was a kid. But this time I
was determined not to freak out. It didn’t work. Tiffany went first, and before
they could even finish tying the cord around her arm to puff up her veins, I
was about to drop over. I went outside and stood there until she finished, then
I said I had to go next or I would back out. They sat me down in the chair,
tied the cord around my arm, and began poking around trying to find a vein. Unfortunately
for me, my worst phobia also came with small veins, so it usually takes nurses
several tries to draw my blood. He eventually had to switch arms, but by that
point I don’t really remember anything because my mouth was dry, my ears were
ringing, and I was well on my way to fainting. He got the blood sample and then
I guess I walked outside and fainted in Katie’s lap on the sidewalk. The man
ran outside yelling that I had to get off the ground or I would get diseases,
so he forced me to stand up and follow him into the hospital where he made me
lie down in a bed for half an hour. Thankfully, none of us had malaria or
typhoid, but it was still a rough morning. My life is weird.
One day in Kenya during our month 8 debrief a couple of the finance people and I were asked to go get money out to pay for the squad’s visas into Tanzania. The catch was that it had to be US Dollars, which are surprisingly hard to acquire in Nairobi. We spent the entire day carrying around more bills than any of us had ever seen all inside of the pockets of Peter’s jacket. If he had been shot I don’t think he would have even been hurt because of all the financial padding he was sporting. We finally found a ForEx bureau to exchange the money for us, and it was quite a relief to unload our loot. It was a weird feeling to be a missionary carrying around a truckload of cash and credit cards. My life is weird.
One day in Tanzania I stayed home from ministry because I was sick.
I’m pretty sure I have an intestinal parasite of some sort from swallowing too
much water while rafting the Nile River in Uganda. Everyone else was at church,
but I stayed home in order to have a better proximity to the outhouse. However,
I failed to mention to our contacts that I would be staying behind, so they all
left and locked up the house on their way out. At about 10:30 am I decided I
really needed to utilize the aforementioned facilities, so I walked to the
door…and found that it was bolted shut with no key. I began to slightly panic
as I tried the other door and found it also bolted. Then I tried the indoor
squatty potty and found the door to that room locked and the key gone too. I
realized that there was absolutely no way out of the house, and people weren’t
supposed to come home until about 2:00 pm. I sat down on my bed and tried to
sleep, but I felt too sick, so I just sat and wrote blogs and prayed for
someone to come home. Eventually some women showed up to cook lunch and let me
out. They were very surprised to see a desperate mzungu run out the door when
they unlocked it. My life is weird.
One day in Tanzania several of us decided to go visit a Maasai
village a few hours from where we were staying. We took the bus for a couple
hours and then rented motorcycles to drive us out into the bush to where the
village was. I hopped on the back of the motorcycle behind the driver and we
drove off down the road. About a minute into the drive he started turning
around and trying to talk to me in broken English. I expressed my desire for
him to face forward and concentrate on the road, but that was lost in
translation. He said, “You are American. I want to come to America, but nothing
monies. I need to marry an American. Are you married? You want to marry me?”
“No thank you,” I replied. “I don’t know you and I’m leaving in a few days so I
can’t marry you.” “Why do you not be loving me?” he asked me. “I am loving you
too much and you are not be loving me.” “Yes,” I told him, “You do love me too
much because you don’t even know me. I can’t marry you. I’m sorry.” “Tomorrow I
will see you again,” he said. “We will see about you and me.” “No,” I assured
him, “There will be no you and me.” I hopped off the motorcycle, he road away,
and thankfully that was the end of that. My life is weird.
One day in Tanzania, after I had taken one round of antiparasite
medicine and antibiotics, Katie and I decided that we needed to see the doctor
again because we were not getting any better. We walked to the local hospital
and asked the doctor to test us for parasites. He handed us two small glass
jars and a broken toothpick each. “These are for you to acquire the sample,” he
explained. When we looked dubiously at the broken toothpicks, he said, “This is
Africa.” I guess we’re not the only ones that say T.I.A. Then, after he had
failed to diagnose us and give us the proper medicine, he asked to be our
Facebook friend and wrote down his email address and phone number on our
receipt. My life is weird.
