Back with minimal scratches

I ended up staying an extra day in Kampala, returning Monday after spending Sunday hanging out with Lindsay, Andrew, Shariff, Kenny and many others who I've been incredibly impacted by this past weekend.

The Nile was pretty amazing. Even at its "source," just north of Lake Victoria, it is a few hundred yards (or meters in Africa) wide. We rafted 30 kilometers through banks of beautiful green hills, some cultivated by the waterside inhabitants, with hundreds of people seen washing clothes on the river's shore throughout our journey. During the marathon float, we went through I think eleven named rapids, at least three of them class 5, and we flipped our raft twice. We went down a three-meter waterfall and passed by a section called "The Dead Dutchman," named for the Dutch man who died trying to navigate it. We had carbo-crackers and a quarter of a pineapple for lunch on the raft, and I think I drank at least my eight-glasses-a-day of water straight from the river in between long stretches of calm water where my skin baked to produce a wonderful outline of a life vest by the end of the six-hour adventure. I think I'd have to say it beats almost every trip I've taken down Village Creek, except for maybe the one where Juan told Matt he was gay while alone in a canoe with him in the middle of the creek. That's a classic.

At any rate, the Nile River Expedition very easily proved to be one of the great epic experiences of my short life thus far, but it has somehow been overshadowed by the events of Friday and Sunday, which will have a much farther reaching impact on my life...

I got picked up by Lindsay on Friday morning at th FH Guest House in Kampala, and after exploring around town a bit, we headed to the village fifteen minutes away where she said lunch was being prepared in my honor.

We got there around 11:00am and were told we must wait a bit while the lunch preparations were completed. After two hours past, we decided we could wait no longer and went into the compound of refugees, only to find everyone wearing makeshift hats out of construction paper and twine, with various phrases written on each person's hat above their name, some making perfect sense and greatly humbling me ("God has brought U for a purpose"), and some causing me to stop and cock my head with a curious smile on my face ("A friend in need is a friend in deed" and "we never met a person like you", this being before we'd ever met). They had made hats for me and Lindsay as well. Mine said "Very happy to meet you", and I couldn't tell if they were saying that to me through giving me the hat, or they were expecting me to say that to them through my wearing it.

Whichever the case, we were quickly ushered into the home of the oldest man in the small community, a small two-room place--each room about 10' x 10'--with a concrete floor and one bed, which quickly filled with at least thirteen people dishing out beans and rice and Fantas to one another, me and Lindsay receiving the first two heaping plates. Then, for the next two hours, we sat around the walls of the room, all baker's dozen of us, with two precious baby girls in the middle providing the bulk of the entertainment, laughing and talking and smiling at one another. It was a phenomenally humbling and joyous day, spent mostly with people who have come to Uganda to escape the wars and traumas in their home countries, mostly DR Congo and Burundi. They own next to nothing as far as this world is concerned, but there are some in that community who are among the richest I've ever met in the Kingdom of God.

One guy I met, Kenny, is 20 years old and a sophomore in high school. His mother and father passed away from AIDS in 2005, leaving behind him and two younger brothers. He met Lindsay and her friends in the clinic where his father was dying, and through the steadfast love shown to him, he was captured by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and has never been the same since. In him, more than anyone I have ever met, there was displayed a life embodied by the deep peace, humility and quiet contentment of one whose confidence is firmly rooted in the trustworthiness of the Son of Man, who came to seek and save what was lost.

Another guy I met was Andrew, who was abandoned by his parents when he was three and brought himself up on the streets of Kampala until his teenage years, when an older woman took him in and gave him a chance at life. He is an amazing fellow, full of life and hope and a humbling love for his friends. He is now starting secondary school at 20 and wants to be a pastor. But despite the completely redemptive story told by his life, it is still wrought with horrendous difficulties that are hard for me to wrap my mind around. One night when Lindsay, Kenny, Andrew and I went out to eat, Andrew was much quieter and less upbeat than usual. A couple days later he apologized for his off-kilter behavior and explained that for the past month or so, some men have been trying to kill him, and he was just thinking about that and it was upsetting him. I can't imagine having to live with that prospect and not having a strong base of family support to rely on.

And there is Shariff, the 17-year-old kid from a broken home who lives with Andrew and another guy in the village. He is in his second year of secondary school. We ate lunch together on Sunday, and the whole time he was asking me very in depth questions about George Bush and Bill Clinton and the Iraq War and who I was going to vote for and the state of Africa and things like that, and he seemed much more knowledgeable than me in terms of worldwide current events. It wasn't until much later in the day that I he told me he wanted to be travel the world as a journalist, fighting for freedom with his words instead of with a gun. We spent all day Sunday together, and by the end of the day, I felt like I'd known him for months because of the depth of our time together. He seemed very mature in some sense, but I could also tell very poignantly that he is still just a kid, yearning for and needing people to love and care for him and his spiritual, emotional, and physical development as a human being.

These three boys were left to fend for themselves much too early in their lives, and they struggle constantly to cope with the difficulties of life without the presence of a father or mother figure to guide and comfort them. Yet in spite of this, they have huge dreams that dwarf the hopes I have for my own life, and they appropriately make me question what I'm really putting my hope in. When I think of them, and the whole community of refugees who so graciously hosted us for lunch, my heart is filled simultaneously with immense joy and deep sorrow, as I see the peace of the firmly grounded hope they have, even in the midst of their dire present circumstances. And it is not a flighty expectation that God will simply rescue them from all their material and physical problems if they "have enough faith" or go to the right church or sing loud enough in worship. God is not a means to some other end for them. He is their end, their Comforter, and their Father. And this means that He is active in their daily lives, restoring, refining and redeeming them and their circumstances. They know that the call of Jesus is a call to die, that life is filled with uncertainty and tumult, and that Jesus didn't ask His Father to take us out of this world, but to protect from the evil one while in it(John 17:15). But they also see the call of Jesus as one producing an imperishable hope that supersedes the joys offered by this life and makes it worth living, and worth living abundantly.

And THAT was my weekend.

For a Limited Time Only...

This weekend may be one of the most epic experiences of my 23.8104 years of existence, only exceeded by possibly "SD '05: Mission Make the Jenny Feel Loved," Jason Ballard's and my 48-hour long trip to South Dakota and back to see his then girlfriend (now wife); and being Kevin Duplechin's substitute flag runner for Bridge City vs Woodville my senior year of high school. The experience this weekend will offer breathtaking views of untamed nature, heart-stopping, man-making action, and an intimate mingling with the direct source of sustenance for millions of people on this continent. What will this apex of adventure, this jaw-dropping journey, this most eminent of egregious escapades, be? Why, none other than whitewater rafting the Nile River! That "world's longest river," which 4,000 years ago served graciously as baby Moses's cradle, and then eighty years later turned to blood as a display of the power of I AM and a stern warning to Pharaoh to let His people go; which, in 1858, British explorer John Hanning Speke erroneously dubbed Lake Victoria the source of; and which this weekend will play host to a dozen or so mzungus ("white person" in swahili) looking for a day of rushing adrenaline atop the rush of waters that was the life source of one of the greatest civilizations ever known to man. They say no one has ever beaten the Nile...but I tell you, my friends, this Saturday I will come as close as anyone ever has.

We'll be going to Uganda this weekend, a ten hour bus trip, to raft the river's Bujagali Falls, whose class 5 rapids will soon be the bottom of a reservoir, the result of an $800 million project underway to help solve Uganda's chronic power shortage by damming the Nile just below the falls. The situation bears slight resemblance to the Three Gorges Dam project in China on the Yangtze River that is apparently submerging one of the most incredible natural landscapes in the world, not to mention displacing over 1.3 million people and creating myriads of other environmental problems in its wake, or lack thereof. I don't know if the cons will outweigh the pros in situation in Uganda, where only 5% of the people have access to electricity, but it is at least worth mourning the loss of one of East Africa's great avenues for adventure and the only source of income for many rural poor people living in Uganda. At any rate, in 2011 the falls will be no more, which makes this weekend's experience even more valuable.

I'm going to be traveling up to Kampala tomorrow, a day before everyone else, to spend Friday visiting with Lindsay Branham, the FHI-DRC worker I hung out with a lot when I was in the Congo who is now on R&R in Uganda, and this community of refugees just outside the city that she has become very close to and spoke much of during our time together. I'm looking forward to this part of the trip as much as, if not more than, the Nile rafting. Seeing the faces and meeting some of the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven will be a tremendous experience for sure. So, if all goes as planed, or maybe more so if it doesn't, this weekend will be an adventure in many ways.

As far as everyday life in Rwanda is concerned, yesterday we got wireless internet at the Thor's house (where I'm staying) which was definitely a joyous moment, but it was poignantly countered by the departure of Seng, the patriarch of the Thor family, leaving his wife longing for his companionship and me longing for more testosterone. He'll be gone two and a half weeks to the US and Uganda for training. Last week and this week, the kids at Kigali International Community School (KICS), whose campus is connected to the FH office here, have been learning to play American football during P.E. class, and it has drawn quite a crowd of onlookers at times. It is very odd to see high school age kids learning how to play real football for the first time, and it has made me seem that much more the star athlete, as Seng and I played with them a couple of days last week.

I've been searching for a coffee press all over Kigali, and have yet to find one. I'm kicking myself for not bringing the one JBall got his groomsmen. It blows my mind that in a country whose economy is largely dependent on coffee, there is quite possibly not one non-electric coffee maker for sale. I refuse to believe it. I've seen them at the only legitimate coffee shop in Rwanda, Bourbon Coffee in Kigali, but they won't sell one to me for lack of supply. I'm still holding out hope, but it is quickly waining, and I fear I may be forced to drink Nescafe' instant stir-in coffee for the rest of my time here. That's all that is offered at the office, and I think I'm the only one who drinks it, much to the disgust of some of my coworkers (hardly any Rwandans drink coffee). And on the home front, there is not enough demand to necessitate an electric coffee-maker, so pretty much anywhere I go I'm on a coffee-loving island in a vast sea of indifference. I have had Rwandan coffee on a couple of occasions, mainly in Bourbon Coffe, and it is very nice. I'm not enough of a connaisseur to rank Rwanda's beans against the rest of the world's, but I can say definitively that if I was offered a choice between a fresh cup of Rwandan brew and a Fanta Citron, I would choose the coffee eight times out of ten, if that says anything, which it probably doesn't.

General Update

I guess it's been over a week. My, how time flies in developing countries...

Last Wednesday I went to Butare, in the Southern Province of Rwanda, to help Tom (a volunteer British man here for three years) catalog some small, rural micro-enterprises that FHI is supporting and sponsoring through PPPMER (Projet pour la Promotion des Petites et Micro-Entreprises Rurales, or for you non-french 3ers, Rural Small and Micro-enterprise Promotion Project). We spent one night and a day and a half in Butare and the surrounding countryside, trying to hunt down a comprehensive list of the businesses registered with PPPMER in the districts that we're working in. We want this list in order to better assist in the marketing of their products and/or services, as most of them, as the project name would imply, are very small and in rural areas where networking and distribution is a logistical nightmare (Matt, there is probably a job for you here if nothing works out in the big-D. Linsday too; PLENTY of babies being born). This experience proved to be a very good lesson in the difficulty of obtaining essential information in Rwanda. After much uncertainty and vague directional prodding for nearly a day, we finally discovered that a list existed, but that it could not be accessed because it is, ironically, in Microsoft Access format which for some reason would not open on the computer the list is in.

We did, however, get to interview a few cooperatives of beekeepers that we're working with, to learn about their productivity and the problems they face. We met them at a workshop being conducted in association with PPPMER where they were learning how to increase their production of honey through better hive construction, increased use of fertilizer for plants to be pollinated, more efficient ways of harvesting the honey, etc. It was very interesting. The businesses are formed through Cooperatives: groups of people in the same trade who pool their resources in order to increase efficiency, productivity, and investment possibilities.

Back in Kigali on Thursday night, we found out that Friday would be a national holiday in celebration of the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. So that was pretty interesting. There is around a 5% Muslim population in Rwanda, which I didn't think merited a Government-endorsed nationwide early weekend, but obviously I didn't complain too much. It was a nice, unexpected free day, full of reading, Facebooking, hanging out with fun people, market-shopping and eating Brouchettes (Skewers of delicious goat meat for about $0.50). Great combo.

It turns out that I'll be helping Tom a bit more intensely with the development of marketing for these PPPMER businesses. It should be fun and interesting. I'll try to post a more in-depth synopsis of what we're doing, maybe prompting someone to give advice or ideas ;).

I've also been learning some Kinyarwanda. I know how to say about three phrases: Mwiriwe (Good afternoon), Murakoze (Thank you), and Umuhungu arahinga (The boy is hoeing). Just enough to get my point across in most situations.

Attencion!

Here's the blog of a girl I spent a ton of time with in DRC. I've linked to it on the side, too. She is incredibly passionate about issues concerning the poor and disadvantaged here in Africa. I would say that the overwhelming reason for my time in Congo being beneficial was my conversations with her.

The 'Love Can Overcome Evil' entry is absolutely stunning and a necessary read for anyone who has the desire to put some flesh on the horrible atrocities occurring in Eastern DRC right now.

Update on Akageraland

I have been working on a musically enhanced slide show of pictures from the Akagera game reserve for a while now. I'm using iMovie HD, which is a pretty sweet program that came standard on my little Mac here. I've never made a movie before, so I'm doing a lot of exploring and playing around with the different features and stuff, which makes for slow progress on the movie itself. I'm really excited about it, though, and can't wait to share it with you guys whenever I get the whole thing lined out. Sorry Dad & Gail. You probably won't be able to view it on your computer.

The rainy season has finally come in full force. It is enchanting to experience, but it is at least a month overdue. There have also been reports of polar bears showing up on people's doorsteps asking for spare change or a piece of bread. Al Gore may be onto something here...

SSL

I apologize for the barrenness of the blog these past two weeks. Here's what has been going on:

Two Tuesdays ago, I was sent to the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to help with recruiting for some ex-pat positions that FH-DRC is trying to fill. They are very shorthanded when it comes to proficient English speakers, so I got the nod. I spent ten days setting up interviews, checking references, and compiling sweet Excel sheets (thank you Stephen Dyer for showing me how to create borders) to help streamline the hiring process, which has been going dreadfully slow up to this point. I spent all my time in Bukavu, which is closer to Rwanda than Bridge City is to Louisiana. I stayed at the Country Director's house, which is on lake front property on Lake Kivu. The view is absolutely stunning. The DRC, especially in the east, is very unstable in parts, but my whole time there I felt like I was on vacation. I met some great people and got to see another country in Africa and a little bit of the operations of FH there. It was a wonderful trip.

I arrived back in Rwanda this past Saturday and got to spend the weekend relaxing and processing my experiences, which was invaluable. But today, its back to the office in Kigali. I have plenty of work to do, some remaining from the Congo, some new stuff for here in Rwanda. I think I'm going to Butare (a town in the south of Rwanda) on Wednesday or so to do some cataloging of businesses, which should be fun.

I feel like my stay in DRC was somewhat of a rite of passage for my time here in Africa. It was very calm the whole time where I was, but it forced me to confront the fact that the problems these countries face are very real and require much thought, compassion, prayer, and humility, and time to deal with them. If learn nothing else, I think that is a valuable lesson to be learned.


Good words:
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1:5