If you haven’t read ‘Mutarara: The Arrival,’ read that first. You can find it on the left under ‘Current Life Happenings’
I woke up our first morning in Mutarara to discover I really had no idea what our surroundings were like due to arriving in the dark the night before. I was surprised to find we were surrounded by a collection of mud huts with grass roofs and two concrete homes. To the south is a soccer field, and at the far end of that….a giant white tent?
It took a bit for me to register what I was looking at, but I soon discovered that we were at the other end of a soccer field from a displacement camp for flood victims. The giant tent I first noticed was the supply tent for Unicef, World Food Program, World Vision, and a few other organizations that were all working together to care for some 80,000 people. And the soccer field was no ordinary field either – all day long, nearly 7 days a week, giant cargo helicopters would come in and out with supplies and food, using the field as their landing pad. Kind of put a damper on playing out there with the kids, but it made for several moments where I’d stop and go ‘I think I’ve seen this scene in a movie,’ as a helicopter came in overhead while I was pouring over a map writing down distances and fuel costs for ATM trips.
It’s rural out here, which makes life generally frustrating at times. We’re a six hour drive from the nearest internet café and ATM. Things that would take a few hours with a forklift take 4 days with a dozen people and a tractor. Everyone knows money doesn’t grow on trees – it apparently grows on white skin though, according to the locals. No one believes you when you say you have nothing to give. I even have to go so far as showing my empty wallet, and still they give me looks of ‘Oh come on, it’s just a little bit’ like I can magically produce cash. One guy went as far as throwing a rock at Brandon and I for not giving him something.
And let me tell you about new levels of claustrophobia and why I’ll never go to another zoo (well, I’m sure I actually will, but seriously, it sucks being an exhibit all day). It’s too hot to have a rain fly on your tent (this is by far the hottest place I’ve ever been in my life), but it’s still tempting to put it on so you don’t wake up to 10 kids staring at you through the mesh siding of your tent. No matter where I go, a crowd of kids from all over the place are there just staring at me. They even push each other aside for a clear view. I tried just sitting still for as long as I could to see if they’d lose interest, but after an hour of random math problems, unsuccessfully trying to work out the secret to a Rubik’s cube, and having mental debates on who would win in a fight between various super heroes, I finally gave up, and yes, the kids hadn’t budged. When we cook, we have no more than a foot of space on either side of us because they just crowd in closer and closer in an attempt to see…well, us, and what we do I guess. I still haven’t figured out why we’re so interesting. Every time I walk down the road it’s only moments before I have four kids on each hand, holding on to whichever finger or wrist they can find. It’s cute, but claustrophobia inducing none the less
But don’t get me wrong – this place is beautiful and so are the people, even when I’m frustrated by their lack of respect for space and privacy. They have so little, but they are so giving with all they have, and so overly concerned with our well being. I woke up one morning thinking my shoes had been stolen in the night, only to find out someone had seen them outside my tent and hid them for me, thinking they would get stolen in the night. It’s annoying when someone else does stuff like that, moving your things without asking or caring for you in a way you don’t want to be cared for (like making you a dinner after you already ate your own and have told them repeatedly not to cook for you), but you can’t get mad because they did it out of love and concern for you. With so very little to call their own, they give all that they do have with reckless abandon – love, time, smiles, the occassional guinea fowl, and laughter. Oh, and work. They give so much in their work.
The women haul bricks, clear fields with machettes, pound grain for hours, and a million other things with children strapped to their backs or fronts (depending on if it’s feeding time or not), singing all the while. Just when frustrations seemed to be at their worst, when I was on the verge of letting it all out in a scream and throwing something breakable, someone would start praising God. I couldn’t understand the language, but I could feel it all melting off of me as God’s presence brought peace; it would all come back into perspective and I’d just let things happen as they needed to. And I realized that living a life of praise and worship is just another way of living in submission to God – it’s a constant recognition of God’s presence, which means you constantly recognize that He’s in charge and no set of circumstances can change that. All the rest…well, it’s just noise.
