This lions are quarreling

“And we are just here in the grass.”  That was how my neighbor described the atmosphere in Bundibugyo District.  The civil servants, those nurses, teachers, accountants and administrators, who depend upon government-issued salaries, are on edge.  They do not want to take sides in the major political strife that is occurring, because they are not quite sure which side will emerge victorious.  And this is not about which side is right, at least not for them.  It is about survival.  Corruption is assumed to be rampant, truth is assumed to be elusive, success in life is assumed to be tied to patronage, so the path of wisdom is to lay low in the grass until the lions achieve some truce.

I’ve been reflecting on the role of the outsider, people like us, in this place.  More and more I see that a major aspect is that we ARE outsiders. Yes, we try to learn the language, to achieve acceptance, to work within, to build relationships.  But our other-ness carries a measure of safety and a measure of power for change.  My life does not depend upon which of the lions dominates the other.  My income does not depend upon staying in the good graces of the governing political party.  My relationships don’t carry any weight of bribes asked or owed.  

That independence sets us apart. It means the school can fire teachers who abuse female students, even if that teacher would happen to be related to a man of power.  It means that our nutrition programs hand out food to children who are marginalized and malnourished, not to those who are relatives of the health workers. It means that we can speak against injustice without fearing a curse.  For some, it means we can be trusted.  For others, it means we can be dangerous, because we are harder to manipulate.

Last week I was filled with indignation, I won’t say holy indignation, because I now my anger does not carry the fully righteous mix of truth and compassion that it should.  But I was confronted with two-year-old child who had become progressively lame, with a gibbus back, probably due to spinal TB, a treatable condition.  I had arranged for transport from our own donors (equivalent to about a month’s salary here) to get her to a decent hospital for neurosurgical evaluation.  I asked her mother to call her father to come in and contribute some token amount, for a meal along the way, so that he would also own the decision to seek care.  He was a relatively well-off man with three wives and a fish-trading business.  He refused to give his wife and child a single shilling, telling me that he had nothing.  As confidently as I could in Lubwisi I cautioned him that God sees his heart and actions and cares about the life of even this child.  And I advised the mother to seek support from her brothers if her husband refused to help.  She requested discharge and a few days later came back with her brother and her own savings to embark upon the journey towards healing her child.  But interestingly, even though she was going with her brother, her husband was there to see her off.  I think he had begun to doubt his refusal to help.

It is anti-cultural to put the power of money and motion into the hands of a woman when her husband is not in agreement.  Was this wrong?  I hope not.  I hope it was an example of the way the Gospel frees.  I hope it was a small stand to show the mother of this child that she was a valuable person who could act to help her child.  Certainly Jesus was not intimidated by the religious establishment of his day, which made him a dangerous person too.  But I am very , very aware that I am not Jesus, and all of my struggles for justice are tainted by pride, by a judgmental heart, by incomplete understanding of the real story.  I can only pray that while the lions quarrel, we can give a hand up to some of those cowering in the grass.