JETprt3: reflection on the journey so far 1 week down, 3 to go

i am day 13 in Uganda… and day 12 in K, or rather with the people who are here

there are lots lots lots of things that i wish i could write about but part of me feels like not doing it because perhaps then it would be me just ranting and whinging (which i don’t like) but then the other part of me would like to chronicle this bit of what i am experiencing becuase it is indeed quite unexpected. certainly something i did not even think possible when i thought about preparing to come over here.

but before i forget the bullet points of some of the things so far:
- today i assissted in delivering my first Ugandan baby C-section baby girl! very exciting!
- and i also assissted in a microsurgery on the hand! it was a terrible trauma incident… the guy got slashed with a hoe. i really had to pull on the whole “i am a professional” and not pass out at the injury
- christmas party in the schoolhall reminded me of one of the events i went to in my earlier teen years with Janet- like an Iban dinner party/church event. made me nostalgic somewhat.
- finished one week in paediatrics, well 4 days (friday was Christmas hence it was a break).. that was really interesting. i do with i could speak more of the language
- going for a walk nearby the guesthouse with L and S (and tonight is S’s last night before she leaves for Ireland)

So more or less my days have a set sort of routine..
i wake up and get ready for the day
breakfast at 0730 and chapel at 0800
breifing for the day bgins after that at about 0830- with allocations
then in the hospital for the day
lunch at 1430
dinner at 1930
L, S and I have fallen into the routine of watching a movie in the night and then just chilling so far.. however S is leaving soon so the venue which most of this happens will be gone.. hmm i don’t really know what will happen then

there is a LOT of time here for sitting around and chatting. and sometimes the chatting is a bit.. hmm because it really causes me to think or more bluntly put, perhaps i am very naive in my thoughts when i was preparing to come here.

a few of the things here are a bit odd. for example, the place which i am staying in is very Westernised. we hardly ever (not even once so far for me) get served African food.. instead dinner so far has been a lot of beans, potatoes, roast pork, pastas, rice, curried vegetables, etc. And it would also seem that the place we are staying a quite strictly ‘mizungus’ (foreigners), which makes it a bit isolated from the community in a way. i mean i still walk out and say hello to people and they always say “How are you?” even when the 3 of us went for a little walk (Which was like Tasek except that we had a lot of Goat poo to dodge and while walking we manage to gather a ‘fan club’ of followers.. one of the girls was quite cute she began to recite all the things she learnt at her school..and while we walked past the houses and the countless banana plantation and goat farms, people just YELLED “How are you?!” and “Give me money”- in a cheeky way but more on that later). Yeah, one of the people who has been here for a long while now made the comment on my first day in that it seemd like K was like a “little England”. hmm

the other thing that i noticed was that so far the people here are really looking to the mizungus to keep giving them things and they would keep demading more… at a child’s level, even at a young age they would demand “Give me money”; “give me sweets”. It’s very perplexing because on the one hand… it is not like they have nothingnothing. comparatively to the rest of the Ugandan/third world country communities, they do have some… and i also notice that they don’t really understand when it is a treat, as in it is a once-off “i want to bless you with this” and not a regular “you need to keep supplying me with it” kind. it is really odd and interesting because there have been times already where i would have to say no… as in not giving them money, and then i feel bad afterwards. it is very perplexing i am not quite sure if i know how to express it fully

and then there is also the community of mizungus… interacting with them- amongst whom are missionaries and professional Christian volunteers have shown me another aspect to mission work and field work as well as volunteering. and the whole concept of a mission organisation and the church and what that actually means in terms of managing finances adn running a hospital, school and other endeavours. the complexities of relationships- all supposedly “brothers and sisters in Christ”… it is too much for this post i reckon but i wanted to make a note lest i forget

at the moment i am trying to concentrate on keeping my heart soft still.. and letting God do what He wants for me in this elective experience although i don’t know clearly what that is yet (as a lot of the things i thought acutally didn’t end up being.. so yea) i need to remember that:
“our God is bigger
Our God is stronger
Our God is love
Our God is love”

can’t wait to be home. seriuosly.

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