Neighbors

Though we will always be to some extent outsiders, there are little ways in which we have entered into village life by sheer length of presence.  Our nearest neighbors called us for dinner last night, the Mukiddi family.  We arrive exactly on time, having been chastised for lateness in the past, ironically.  The six of us are not so small anymore, so when we squeeze into a 6 x 8 foot room with a couch, five chairs, and two low tables, and then the two wives come in to receive us, there is not a lot of wiggle room.  We have done this many times over the years, it is familiar.  Greetings are exchanged, murmurs of welcome.  John Mukiddi can no longer walk or move on his own, but here the polygamy comes in handy, it takes both women to lift him to his chair.  In spite of his lameness and heart failure he is in good spirits.  We are served plates heaped with impossible amounts of rice and matoke, and the chicken must have been large since we all get good sized pieces with salty broth.  Scott of course is served the most desirable part, the gizzard.  Only Jack is able to clean his plate in a way that assures them their food is appreciated, mine is lamentably still full after I have stuffed myself to capacity.  Thick sweet passion fruit juice all around, and then glasses refilled as we are pressed to drink it all.  Afterwards we wash hands over a plastic basin, and the food is cleared.  We chat about how Caleb sits in class with their son John, about how Luke is now taller than me, about the fact that Dan’s daughter has graduated from nursing school and is coming to visit this summer.   In short we have more shared history with this family than with many of the people we know in America.

Daylight is dimming outside and now only shadows are visible in this small room.  We pray together, then make our slow exit, accompanied by the wives half way back to our house.  In Africa mutual dependence means security, and I sense that in their happiness over our continued relationship, and in the peace we feel to have the same neighbors for so many years.

Mingled Love

“In all lands love is now mingled with grief . . . . “  Lady Galadriel, Fellowship of the Ring

As the small company of friends flees from great evil, mourning the loss of their leader, with their future uncertain, the wise Lady of the Wood acknowledges the temptation to despair but assures them that love still prevails, but this love is now inextricably intertwined with grief.

Such is the nature of love in a dangerous place.  Tomorrow an 11 year old girl named Kabugho Margaret will set off for Kampala with her father and one of our nursing staff.  Her abdomen is grossly distended with fluid and she winces in pain from a huge and growing mass.  She is dying of cancer, but able to smile in response to questions.  Her pregnant mother is wrapped in a kitengi, her concerned father wears flip flops sitting in my kitubbe today, and when he wracked his brain to think of how he could raise money to get her care he could only think of selling his chicken, worth about six dollars.  That won’t get them far.  Perhaps it is unmerciful to even offer them hope.  I struggled with that all weekend and am still not sure it is right to spend almost all the money we have left in our health account (about $250) to give her a long shot at treatment.  If this is a Burkitt’s Lymphoma it could be curable.  The chances, however, of any ordinary humble inexperienced patient navigating the inept and harsh bureaucracy of the national referral hospital (the only place in the country with chemotherapy) seem slim.  The alternative, remaining here, some tylenol for pain, and before long, death.  Perhaps the most merciful choice, but one I lacked the courage and conviction to make yet.  So she is going.

Closer to home, this morning reminded us of how fragile life is, especially here.  We were in the midst of singing a song at church when Joe ran in and got my attention, saying “my mom and dad say to come quick, something is wrong with Louisa.”  I tapped Scott’s shoulder and ran out after Joe, to see Kevin standing across the way waving us on to come quickly, saying she stopped breathing.  They had been at home watching a video together, when they suddenly became aware that Louisa was drooling, pale, then blue, unresponsive, floppy.  By the time  they piled everyone into the car and drove up to our house she was arousable.  My heart was still pounding, the sense of being on the brink of life before and after a crisis event that could change all our futures.  But this was a recurrence of the febrile convulsions she used to have as a baby, she was pretty out of it for a while after the seizure and her temperature started to rise rapidly.  She tested positive for malaria.  After some treatment and prayer we believed she would be fine, and there was thankfulness all around by the time she could sip a soda and say “Mom, see, I TOLD you I was sick.”   This is a bad malaria season in Bundibugyo. Love and sorrow meet, an awareness of danger for the ones we care about, this time not ending in desperate grief, but a sense of grace.  

Louisa spared, Kabugho we don’t know yet, all trust in One whose love plumbed the depths of grief and came back to save us.

Back to Reality

Yesterday, after two fairly challenging days back to work at the hospital, I expressed to our team mate as we prayed together a sense of thankfulness to be back to the front line.  I do feel that way about medicine.  For a few hours daily I am face to face with sickness, putting my hands and eyes and ears to work, trying to discern problems and pull children through the harshness of this world, fighting for life.  There is something very basic and clear about that, the sense that this is reality, that the good of healing is unambiguous, that the power to confront a small part of the evil infecting our world is a gift.  I like staying grounded in those hours of front-line resistance to the work of the enemy.

But today I am bowled over.  Five hours straight of undiluted pain, and the restful break is forgotten, and the sense of purpose and wholeness of returning to my daily work seems difficult to grasp.  Just a sample:  Congolese twins who BOTH have sickle cell disease, with dwindly little bodies and crying out when their mysterious bony swellings are touched; new diagnosis of AIDS in a child; an 11 year girl cheerily answering my questions two days ago now in great discomfort as what is probably a massive tumor fills her abdomen (maybe lymphoma, maybe I will be able to get her to Kampala for treatment, maybe not); over an hour negotiating phone calls with everyone I could raise in positions of authority in the health system to agitate about the fact that we are short on ARV (medicine for AIDS) supplies and patients are going to suffer; a 4-ish year old boy who seems to have a broken leg after a drunk man clubbed him for disturbing their traditional dance (?witchcraft) last night; a girl who was possibly bit by a snake during the night as she was fine yesterday but awakened in pain and progressive massive swelling of her head and neck, thankfully still able to breath; a woman who came to Uganda years ago as a refugee after her husband and relatives were killed by rebels in Congo, delivered a baby this past week, received no antenatal care for the pregnancy, does not know the father of the baby, has had her last three babies all die, is mentally impaired (would I be too?), and is being looked after by a kind neighbor who brought mother and hungry baby to the hospital.  Those are just a few of the cases that stood out from the dozens of others with malaria and diarrhea and anemia . . .

So being able to rescue anyone is so far beyond me today.  Only the bleeding body of Jesus could affect such a rescue (Gal 1:4), though at times in this forgotten pocket of the world the bleeding atonement seems to seep in too slowly.  

Third Culture Kids

Kids who are growing up in a country and culture foreign to their parents’ upbringing are called third-culture-kids, because they are neither the same as their parents (American in our case) nor are they the same as the kids around them (Ugandan in our case), instead they meld their own tiny “third” culture from the other two.

We see this in a hundred ways almost daily but here is a recent interesting example.  Jack (age 9) has difficulty pronouncing “r”, so we saw a speech therapist in America in January who instructed me on some therapy I could do with him here.  We plugged away at it from February to April then took a break, and yesterday started up again.  As I laid out the cards for our game, he put on his African English accent and challenged the whole concept of speech:  “Mom, there are no “r”s in the way people talk here, and I’m going to live all my life in Africa, so why should you care if I can say “girl” (exaggerated attempt at a good rolling American r) instead of “gallll” (perfect imitation of a Ugandan saying the word)?  “

Having kids who can critically step back from cultural norms and question them . . . An eventual strength, but sometimes a challenge to answer.

From Sudan to Sabbath

Scott’s summary of his trip to Sudan is the entry below—scroll down and read it!  You can also see more pictures and thoughts on Kim’s blog (sidebar).  Since his return we have been blessed by a restful and adventurous anniversary trip through southwestern Uganda, borne along by your prayers.  Here are a few highlights:  travel mercies, island of restoration, glories of creation.

TRAVEL MERCIES
Two weeks ago today we piled seven Myhre and Masso kids into the truck at dawn and Karen and I headed out on a two-day journey which eventually reunited us with Scott and Michael.  My biggest concern was being the responsible driver through difficult roads, and/or through car malfunctions.  God sometimes keeps problems at bay, at other times allows us to plow through our fears and find Him faithful.  This trip held the latter—we met drivers from the Fort Portal side who told us the road was blocked, and eventually came to a large truck stuck in the mud on a hairpin turn, obstructing the road.  But there was a narrow passage through the deep mire between the truck and the mountain wall, and our trusty landrover in low-4WD managed to slip by.  So far so good.  After Fort Portal on the paved road I began to notice the car seeming to swerve occasionally, pushing to the side and needing me to over-correct.  We stopped and checked tires, rebalanced the load, shifted some weight from the roof rack.  I prayed for wisdom to know if was just my unfamiliarity with the speed of the tarmac and the winds that whip over the hills, or a real problem with the truck.  At Kasese I felt firmly that something was truly wrong, and pulled into a gas station to ask for a mechanic.  Luke got out and looked with me, and being more observant and in tune with mechanical objects than I am, noticed that the bolt which had recently been replaced on a bar that stabilizes the steering had sheared completely off.  It was gone.  Thankfully we found a diminuitive angel of a mechanic who agreed with our diagnosis.  It took about four or five hours (painful) for him to take off parts, hire a motorcycle to run around Kasese town looking for replacements, jerry-rig bushings, try, test drive, go back to the pit, replace another rear stabilizing rod bushing.  I called our usual mechanic Atwoki on the phone at several points for advice.  In the end the potentially dangerous problem was solved.  Later on the very rough tracks in the game park I realized that if we had not invested in that repair we would have been unable to complete our planned trek.  And in spite of the delay, it was a chance to see that God was able to bring us through the thing I feared.

ISLAND OF RESTORATION
Sounds like something out or Pilgrim’s Progress. In our case it was Bushara Island, a flowering forest rising up from the chilly waters of Lake Bunyoni (place of the little birds, literally) in the highlands around Kabale.  The Church of Uganda runs a simple retreat center on this island, a dozen or so tents and cottages scattered around its steep shore, each with a porch overlooking the still waters of the long narrow lake.  On the spine of the island is a centrally located open-air restaurant of sorts, complete with a stone fireplace.  At about 8 thousand feet the nights are COLD, a welcome respite from our steamy valley.  The Massos, Pierces, Larissa, Scotticus, and Kim joined us for card games, read alouds, jumping off the pier to swim in the lake, wild flings from a frighteningly high rope swing, a swimming/running/canoeing family triathalon disguised as a treasure hunt, reading, bird watching, some sailing and more swimming.   This is a place with outhouses, no running water, and no electricity . . . But also none of the usual demands of work and life.  It was the perfect place for us to reconnect as a family and a team, to read Scripture quietly in the mornings, to talk and process.  We are thankful for those days.

GLORIES OF CREATION
From Bushara most of the team went on to Kampala, but Scotticus, Larissa, and our family headed to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, a national park in Uganda which is home to half of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas.  We camped just by the park entrance (I suppose the reputation of being impenetrable was preserved).  One day Scotticus and Larissa trekked the gorillas while our family went on about 10 kilometers of hiking through the woods to see L’hoest’s monkeys, towering trees, sprinklings of vivid butterflies, a view south to the Virunga volcanoes, waterfalls.  The next day the singles stayed with the kids in the camp so we could trek.  Luke has been mourning for months the fact that he was too young to get a trekking permit (age minimum is 15).  Since he is so passionate about Ugandan wildlife I did ask numerous park people if an exception could be made, but to no avail.  On the morning we prepared to trek, as we were getting our briefing from the guide, he introduced the head of the park who happened to be visiting.  I raised my hand and asked one more time if a 14 plus-year-old who was strong and capable and had grown up here could be allowed to go . . . And he said yes!  So in five minutes we ran and got Luke and he joined us.  Seeing the gorillas is an amazing experience—creatures bigger and stronger than us by far, peacefully munching stalks of vegetation or swinging lazily up and down trees, ambling over for better access to the leaves, unperturbed by our presence, rumbling contentment like mammoth kittens.  The silverback’s fingers looked nearly as big as my wrist.  As we returned to the ranger station we were surprised to find a different family of gorillas had ambled into the trees right on the edge of the park—so that I was able to run and get the three younger kids from our campsite and let them also see the gorillas up close (though more briefly)!  I can’t overemphasize what a rare treat and blessing that the entire family was able to view these endangered animals.  That evening we went to see a mission health clinic started by a family doctor from California, and enjoyed touring their facility and exchanging stories.  The doctor insisted in putting us up in his house for the night which turned out to be a lovely, tasteful, private home right on the edge of the forest again, where we could dip in the icy river and relax on the high porch.  While we were in the hospital, our four children watched the gorilla troop amble along the edge of the forest again!  Our Bwindi experience was all we could have hoped for our 20th anniversary.

From Bwindi we moved camp to Ishasha, the southern and little-visited area of Queen Elizabeth National Park.  There is a camp site there along the Ishasha River which forms the Congo border, where we pitched our tents only yards from pods of sunbathing hippos and were observed by raucous colobus monkeys.  This park is famous for the habits of the lions, which climb into ancient fig trees in the heat of the day and rest lazily on the thick branches.  Though we’ve camped there a number of times we had never seen the lions. As soon as we set up the tents the kids were ready to start searching, which seemed like a futile idea in the mid day sun.  However this time our ranger guide led us on and on to tree after tree until we finally found a pair of lionesses.  They regally deigned to glance at us with their yellow-brown eyes as we took pictures beneath them.

In Psalm 104 the poet finds strength in admiring God’s creativity and power as displayed in the lions, the wild donkeys, the flowing streams, the deep oceans.  Whenever we are able to get out into game parks and camp, to be surrounded by darkness under the swath of the milky way, to listen to the trumpet of elephants or glimpse the jeweled wing of a kingfisher in the bushes, our souls are lifted.  Creation’s glorious beauty derives from the fundamental beauty and glory of the Creator, and we are thankful for the opportunities we have in spite of the Fall to see pristine forms of that beauty up close.  

Reflections on Sudan

In January 2005, World Harvest Mission leaders meeting in Kenya set a goal of placing at least one team in a different African country by 2008. Sudan topped the list of potential new sites.

Robert Carr, Michael Masso, Kim Stampalia and I (Scott) recently completed a 1000 mile sojourn through southern Sudan visiting four other Christian ministries spanning four distinct southern Sudanese States.

Southern Sudan, the largest country in Africa, sprawls on a seemingly endless scale. The landscape, a homogenous flat scrubby terrain, thinly populated, is sprinkled with circular mud and thatch huts and studded with the occasional herd of cattle.

We arrived in dry season heat. With temperatures nearing 100 degrees F (and mercifully low humidity) we sweat continuously, drank and bathed frequently. The tall, rail thin Sudanese seem not to sweat or notice the heat. They walk briskly, efficiently, covering dozens of kilometers per day. We’ve heard the average walking time to a water point –a drilled borehole with a hand pump—is about 1.5 hours. These wells are usually the only water source in dry season. When the rains arrive dry stream beds fill, but that surface water may kill since almost no one digs or uses pit latrines.

The rainy season arrived with force six days into our trip. Drenching, driving nearly horizontal thunderstorms pour water into every conceivable dry spot leaving slippery mud and broad shallow pools everywhere. The sandy soil slowly soaks it up, but the humidity and moisture wakes the dormant larva of every imaginable insect. “Sudan is an incredibly harsh environment.” -- Dave Mueller, one of our missionary hosts (Werkok, Sudan) who knows the definition of “harsh” from his 17 years of missionary service in Papua New Guinea.

Wherever we went, people wanted to hear first not from me (the doctor) or from our Regional Director, but from our water engineer. It costs ~$10,000 to drill an equip a deep water borehole – 70 meters down – through mud which often collapses. Many aging hand pumps desperately need repair by skilled hands with the right parts.

On the side of health, most people receive meager medical care by minimally trained Community Health Workers. In two states we visited only three doctors served in each state, making the doctor-to-patient ratio about 300,00: 1. Many women must be dying in the village from childbirth related causes in light of the almost complete lack of transportation, communication, and extremely limited surgical obstetric services.

The needs of the Sudanese who have been at war for most of the last 50 years boggle the mind:

Roads impassable in much of the country for 6 months of the year due to rain.

The enormity of the country with the population thinly distributed and towns widely scattered.
Nearly complete lack of electricity, radio and phone service.

Continuing efforts of the northern gov’t to destabilize the southern rebuilding process by promoting tribalism through the supply of arms to rebel factions.


Heat, insects, lack of supplies and an inflationary economy.

The challenges tempt one to despair. Where, with whom, how will WHM begin a work in Sudan? Even after a 10 day exploratory trip, the answers to those questions remain unclear.


“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”
--Matthew 9: 37-38


“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”
--Mark 8:35

So, please pray with us for faith, courage, wisdom and God’s leading.

Notice of whereabouts. . . .

Dear Friends who Pray,
The first of May finds Scott in Southern Sudan, hopefully Bor, though we have had little communication during the nearly two weeks of this trip.  The first of May finds me packing for departure—along with the rest of our diminished team (many already traveling) we will leave here Wednesday to head for the southwest corner of Uganda, a cool crater lake where the Church of Uganda has a tourist/retreat project that offers reasonable accommodation, peace and reflection, food and bird watching.  Scott, Michael and Kim should intersect with us on Friday.  I’m ready!!!  From there we head out to Bwindi, the national park where almost half of the world’s known remaining mountain gorillas live.  For our 20th anniversary we are splurging on gorilla permits, allowing us to hike into the woods and see these famous animals.  With the travel and going to Kampala for restocking supplies at the end, this will take us away from home for two weeks.  

Diesel fuel has been in short supply country-wide due to a pipeline breakage, the general inefficiency of a country where things are difficult to manage combined with enterprising hording of the supplies which are left . . .so I’d appreciate prayer that we will have enough fuel to drive to places of rest.  And since I’m not usually the primary driver and solely responsible for passports, money, locking up, packing, tires, etc. . . I’d appreciate prayer for the trip.  We and our team need a Sabbath, to climb into the hills away from the crowds, to pray and sleep and eat and be restored.  Please do pray for a real Sabbath for all of us in these next two weeks.  And be patient if you don’t hear from us, we’ll be disconnected for most of the trip, at least until Kampala (though still reachable by cell phone).

It’s still about 36 hours until we leave . . . And 3 of 4 kids are sick.  So I’m grateful for any and all prayers.
Love,
Jennifer

Grieving Harriet

Harriet Thungu will die today.  I made a decision I have rarely been willing to make and the weight of it combined with the grief of defeat has left me drained.  Her parents asked to take her home.  When I arrived this morning she had clearly made a turn for the worse, with gasping agonal respirations.  So I agreed with them, their weeks of anxiety and work needing closure in the comfort of their own home environment.  We sent her home with some milk and medicine but I know she will be dead within a few hours, maybe she is already gone.  She never really woke up since admission, there was no clear response to antibiotics or anti-TB medicine.  Her hot little five-year-old girl body did not look ravaged by disease like so many others, it was just devoid of her person as she lay in coma.  Both parents (and her father’s second wife) were present most of the time, caring, hoping, then despairing.  I wanted to cry with them but felt restrained by the onslaught of other patients and the crowd of the ward.  So I expressed my sorrow as best I could and said goodbye.  

When my niece was in the ICU in America in February, the patient in the bed next to her had a similar presentation to Harriet’s, sudden convulsion leading to the diagnosis of a brain tumor.  This little American girl, though, had immediate scans and referral to the best hospital in the world, surgery by the most skilled surgeon, and was likely cured.  Harriet lingered for a month of guesswork and patched-together care before she slipped into unrecoverable demise.  Having seen both worlds makes it hard for me to accept the suffering of Harriet and her family.  My public health side says that if this was indeed a brain tumor, the prognosis was terrible here in Uganda and the cost of care could be better spent to save  hundreds of lives from simple preventable causes. But my justice side still cries out at the contrast between Johns Hopkins and Nyahuka Health Center, and the irrelevant chance of birth in Maryland vs. Bundibugyo.  Some days I’d rather not know the reality, rather not see the family gathering up the limp body of a still-struggling child, rather not watch them head burdened back to their village.

I see the moon, strange lands, and term breaks

Remembering old songs my mom used to sing, from her own childhood and maybe related to WW2 romantic separations, the theme being that the moon shines on us and those we love in distant lands.  I think that wistfulness came in war time partly due to lack of information and communication.  In the 21rst century many people who travel can stay in touch so easily through email and phone calls . . . But not in Southern Sudan.  I have had a couple of very short messages to know the WHM travelers are fine, but nothing like the actual communication I crave.  So when I walked outside tonight and saw the hovering brightness of the nearly full moon I thought of Scott also seeing the same moon, then remembered those old songs.  A small glimpse of that longing for connection which they express. . .

Today’s encouragement came from the book of Ruth.  Eugene Peterson writes in his introduction that after the dramatic hero-filled stories of the first 7 books of the Bible, here is a story of a normal woman, an insignificant person whose faithfulness opens her to be used to bless the nations.  The words of Boaz in the second chapter jumped out:  “I’ve heard all about you, how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth and have come to live among a bunch of total strangers.  GOD reward you for what you’ve done—and with a generous bonus besides from GOD, to whom you’ve come seeking protection under his wings.”  [Then a TCK (third-culture-kid) moment—I shared with my kids how meaningful those words are to us and they just looked at me, finally saying in effect that they live right here with their mother and father and the land of their birth and no strangers . . . . ]

Lastly, CSB is now on a three-week break.  One of the boys we sponsor came to see me today, serious and nervous.  He is a true orphan, his mother died of AIDS long after his father had already passed away.  He has been passed around with various relatives, staying with this brother or that sister, blending in respectfully and trying not to cause too much trouble.  But the brother he most recently shared a room with took a wife while he was at school this term, which means he’s no longer welcome in that space, so ended up in a noisy and crowded room full of the rest of the family’s small kids, and no bed.  His words were:  I don’t think I can manage to study in the chaos.  So we brainstormed about various relatives and where he might stay, if I provided the mattress.  My concern is that he stay connected with some family and that someone care whether he’s home by dark and whether he’s eating.  I really like this boy, but I can also see that as my students become more attached to our family and comfortable staying around the school and our home, they have a harder time going back.  In some small part that may be a healthy tension of rising expectations; it may also be a true pressure the culture exerts on someone whose expectations are rising, to pull them back down, put them in their place.  As teenage boys become the most educated members of the family, those without strong father/uncle/clan elder influences can be at a loss for how they fit in.  This culture is all about family and hierarchy and we challenge that with education.  Eye opening for me.  Of my oldest two students, one has basically stepped into the provider role for his widowed mother, caring for her and his siblings.  That is good.  The other is much more independent—his widowed mother remarried and his relatives run an alcohol business from their home, also not conducive to health and study, so we rent him a small room adjacent to their compound where he can sleep in peace while still eating with them.  The paying of school fees has bound us in complex ways to these boys, and relationship takes no break between terms.

On spears and empowerment

Today Bundibugyo celebrated International Women’s Day, about two months late, but better late than never.  Uganda was launching an awareness and policy campaign to draw attention to the connection between violence against women and girls, and the disproportionate burden of HIV/AIDS borne by women and girls.  One of today’s speakers claimed that in Uganda the prevalence of HIV infection in 15-19 year old girls is nine times higher than in boys of that age group, which reflects of course the pairing of teenage girls with older men, often in exchange for school fees or other financial assistance.  Each district elects a women’s representative to parliament, and ours was the guest of honor today in the usual four hour parade of speeches, dances, songs, dramas, blazing sun, pressing bodies, unruly children, blaring low-quality sound systems, obsession with protocol, and tedium that comprise any official celebration.  Scott wanted us as a mission to be present and I agree that the Gospel speaks to the status of women in a society, so we should support this day, in spite of the cost of being absent from home (thanks to Scotticus who entertained and supervised), plus the cost of being fingered by curious children constantly, fanning away the fumes of a nearby garbage dump and the fly-clouds which accompany the crowd.  

Well, being empowered is rarely comfortable I suppose.  And the first step in addressing injustice is to name the grievance, to recognize the wrongness of infidelity, physical abuse, denial of property rights, etc. that are the normal lot of most women.  Perhaps the most interesting moment of the day came when one of the half-dozen drama/dance troupes marched out.  I recognized at least half of the dozen or so faces, women who attend our local church.  It was a bit surreal to hear the same women who lead hymns in the choir sing about condom use while waving the foil packets.  But for the next song they whipped off their outer silk-kitengi wraps to reveal traditional grass skirts worn for dancing, then picked up spears.  I have seen A LOT of traditional dancing here, but never seen a woman hold a spear.  The dance enacted women hunting for food and then fighting in a war, finally killing and disarming the enemy.  They sang boldly that as women they were capable of fighting for themselves.  I’m not sure what Jesus would have thought . . . But I suspect He would have been more in tune with their energized awareness of their value, than critical of the symbolic violence of their demonstration.  The crowd was mesmerized, it was a rare creative, unexpected moment, to see new concepts expressed in dance.