Advocacy efforts...

Jennifer's efforts at advocacy for the children of Bundibugyo have not been in vain...

Uganda's Monitor newspaper picked up her concerns in the article below...

http://allafrica.com/stories/200806190038.html

On mountain climbing, and swords to plowshares

There’s a day coming
When the mountain of GOD’s House
Will be The Mountain-
Solid, towering over all mountains.
All nations will river toward it,
People from all over set out for it.
They’ll say “Come,
Let’s climb God’s Mountain . . . .
He’ll settle things fairly between nations.
He’ll make things right between many peoples.  
They’ll turn their swords into shovels,
Their spears into hoes.
No more will nation fight nation;
They won’t play war any more.
Come, family of Jacob,
Let’s live in the light of GOD.
Isaiah 2 (from The Message translation)

Michael arranged a hike for the interns yesterday, and since my kids were tagging along and I had been away for three days, I went with them too.  We started in Kakuka, at 4,000 feet, what had always seemed to me to be a high and distant town, the last habitable spot before Uganda blends into Congo on the slopes of the Rwenzoris.  Three interns, Kim, Michael and Acacia, and four Myhres (Scott stayed back with Jack who is still trying to recover from his heel injury), two park rangers (required) and six soldiers from two different camps.  The mountain trails are rarely traveled from this side, and the park was, many years ago, the territory of elusive rebel bands, so tourists are required to inform the proper authorities and accept security escorts.  We wended our way along the Lamia river as it flowed from a fold of the hills, the seemingly random border that divides Uganda from the chaotic Eastern Congo.  Our trail ascended past scattered mud homes, gardens of cabbages and beans, the occasional goat or stand of coffee trees.  Compared to the densely populated valley around the mission, these slopes felt peacefully spread out.  At 6,000 feet we entered the forest, and the Rwenzori National Park, leaving all signs of human habitation far behind.  Our goal was a junction called Kakole, at almost 8,000 feet in the bamboo, where the path meets another trail from the Kasese side.  We walked single file on the narrow muddy trail, our arms in front of our faces often to protect us from the damp bushy overgrowth.  Sometimes the trail was so steep and slick we fell, or grabbed roots to almost crawl upward.  It was a strenuous, muscle-taxing, gasping sort of walk, 5 hours up and 3 hours back down.

But well worth it.  The forest shimmers with a thousand greens, from giant wlid banana leaf fronds to spiky prehistoric ferns to feathery bamboo.  Thunder rumbled, echoing, reminding us of the mystery the Rwenzoris held for the people who have lived for generations at their feet, the place where the gods create rain and send it down. As we went higher we passed into the mist of clouds, and then later the drenching of rain.  Ridges overlook deep and unexplored valleys.  Birds call from hidden roosts.  There were hooved prints in the mud, a forest duiker, and probably monkeys watching, but we never saw any animals.  The terrain is vast and dense, nearly impenetrable, thick with the buzz of life and the richness of regeneration, sprinkled with the delicate colors of wild flowers, hiding untold beauties.  

This morning as I read Isaiah, I thought more about why God uses mountains to describe His dwelling.  I think He had something like the Rwenzoris in mind.  Not bald hills, not tame rises one climbs in a car on a paved highway.  No, real mountains, mountains that wrinkle and rise in confusing patterns, with hidden valleys and sheer drop-offs, with rewarding vistas and abundant life.  Mountains that would take a lifetime, or more, to really know.  Mountains where danger and beauty, risk and reward, mingle moment to moment.  

Perhaps it was the presence of the heavily armed guards that made the risk palpable, even though we were quite safe.  (A parentheses:  unlike any popular media portrayal that comes to mind, the UPDF we usually encounter are serious and professional, competent and alert.  The battalion has the nickname “Mountain Sweepers”.  These men carry ropes of bullets and heavy guns but they are the good guys, the ones that ensure that the unrest in DRC does not spill into Uganda, the ones that ensure that rebels who would terrorize civilians can not move with impunity through the anonymity of the forests.)  And here the image fragments a bit.  As we move through our literal mountains, there is danger of exhaustion or illness, of injury or disorientation, or theoretically of attack.

No so on the mountain of God.  There risk remains, but the risk is that of losing self and finding Goodness.  When we finally climb that mountain, the 30 caliber bullets will be melted into ornaments, the AK-47’s will be flattened into hoes.  In God’s presence there will be no evil, no need for armed escorts, no playing war.  Just climbing, further up and further in, to explore His presence.  And again I am reminded of the main theme God seems to be impressing upon me this month:  we only experience as much grace as we risk needing.  Setting off on the trail which is almost too steep and long for my strength puts me in the place where He can reveal His vastness.  The reality of the mountains does not change, but only by risking can I encounter that emerald beauty.

On Advocacy

THE ROAD, EARLY: Scott’s post from yesterday eloquently puts that day into words.  Heidi and I left home at 9 am, did priorty-only hospital work and were on the road at 10:15.  We arrived at our destination in Kampala twelve hours later about 10 pm, and only by the grace of God, the prayers of the powerless (I started the day on the ward asking a widowed grandmother of a motherless baby to pray for ME since I pray out loud daily for them), and the chivalry of my husband who sacrificed his entire day to our rescue.  Please try to picture Heidi and I, with Melen and baby Jonah, peering under the hood of an unfamiliar borrowed car, discussing in Lubwisi mechanical issues I don’t even understand in English with a motorcycle mechanic who materialized out of the nearest village slightly inebriated.  But even in that hour or two, we saw some amazing mercies.  We broke down 50 meters from a pay-to-use phone kiosk, probably the only connection within many, many miles.  Within minutes people we knew in a hospital truck stopped, gave intelligent opinions (including chiding me for not checking the water in the radiator like any decent African driver before a trip) and offered to take Melen on her way, since she was trying to get to Fort Portal and back the same day (still chasing the paperwork for Jonah’s estate).  In the midst of trudging back and forth to the nearby village to get water and use the phone, the young man who owned the phone kiosk became my self-appointed assistant.  I could hear his friends, the ever-present idle crowd of men, teasing him.  And he turned to them and said something like “Of course we are helping her, she is our person, don’t you know she works here in our district for us all these years?”  It was a very sweet moment for me.  How many times have I seen our own need call out kindness, the opportunity to be helped a moment of connection?

THE ROAD, EVER ON AND ON:  Once Scott saved us and switched cars, we bounced along to Fort Portal, where we did have one moment of panic when the truck would not turn on after refueling.  But it turned out to be a loose battery connection from switching batteries from car to car (so we’d have the only functional one) . . .and so we went on.  I don’t usually drive, and felt pretty nervous about the responsibility.  But I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Heidi more than we’ve ever had a chance..  We knew we were so late by this time that we pressed on without stopping for food or drink or anything else.  But our rush was not enough to get us to Kampala before dark.  The last hour and a half were nothing short of harrowing:  darkness unbroken by street lights, so only the narrow field in our headlight beams was visible, the crumbling road pocked by random deep hidden potholes, swerving to maneuver around them, while trying to avoid head-on collisions with oncoming road-dominating suicidal trucks on a fragment of tarmac that is not wide enough for two vehicles, being blinded by the oncoming headlights, and just to make things interesting the sides of the roads packed with pedestrians, bicyclists, the occasional cow, students, last-minute market shoppers, carts, you name it, all seemingly dressed in the darkest clothes possible.  And to make it even more interesting, we were right behind a fuel tanker for a good while, the kind that regularly blows up in accidents here.  At one point a mountain of dirt, no doubt intended for road repair, appeared in our lane suddenly out of the dark, and if Heidi had not yelled I might have hit it.  But she kept her humor, I kept my focus, and somehow we survived.  We were so exhausted by the time we arrived we could barely eat and fall into bed.

THE APPEALS:  We were up early today to re-enter the traffic struggle, an hour-and-a-half of inching progress, futilely whistling policemen, cars driving the wrong way in lanes that don’t exist, swarms of boda-bodas cutting in between the bumpers, in short Kampala.  Our first stop was UNICEF, a brand new beautiful building with security and buzzers and air conditioning and desks and phones . . . Not exactly what we’re used to.  But we dressed up and tried to be confident.  Our contact there put us at ease, and within an hour we had worked out an agreement for them to supply our nutrition unit with about 9 thousand dollars worth of special formula per year.  Small in the UNICEF world, but huge for us.  Instead of being cut off, we are expecting a supply to arrive next week.  Hooray!

From there we found the nursing board, the initial impetus for the trip.  Heidi had been scheduled for an interview at 11 am.  We checked in with the receptionist, and sat to wait. The lady on the phone had told Heidi it would take a few minutes.  A half hour later we decided I should proceed with the day’s tasks and come back for Heidi.  It turned out to be a wise decision, since the 11 am interview happened about about 3 pm..

Meanwhile I found the Mwanamugimu Nutrition Unit at Mulago Hospital, the national referral hospital.  There is something about the open-air, single-story clusters of colonial-era African hospital wards that I love in spite of the peeling paint and scant resources.  Here disease is not glossed over or sterilized:  hungry kids are lined up and intent staff are going about their daily tasks as if it is perfectly normal to mix milk in plastic pails and cook porridge in charcoal-blackened pans.  Because it is.  I stumbled upon Save-the-Children-UK filming documentary footage of malnutrition in relation to rising global food prices, and then spent some time with the staff.  I came away impressed by the articulate and competent nutritionist in charge, and having a connection of sorts for sending our staff for better training.  

Heidi was still waiting.  So from Mulago I found the Clinton Foundation office, where I had a very pleasant meeting with the young program director.  He listened to the needs in Bundibugyo and then pulled out a pen and calculator and committed to sending 150 cartons of plumpynut, a ready-to-eat  food supplement the foundation supplies to HIV positive malnourished children, next week!  It turns out he’s changing jobs next week, so the timing was very providential.  I was beginning to have that feeling that the angels had put a sign on my forehead:  give this woman whatever she asks for.

Heidi was still waiting, so riding the crest of the prayers going before me, I next found the EGPAF offices. I never do this kind of moving about town .. . . So they were all surprised to see me instead of Scott.  But I explained that we had not been able to follow the newest guidelines for the treatment of HIV-infected mothers and babies because we lacked baby-formulations of AZT . . . And came away with 20 little boxes, a good start.

THE HARD NEWS:  By this time it was late afternoon, and Heidi called to say she had finally been seen by the board.  It seems they liked her paperwork and her presence, but there was the little detail they had forgotten to mention that she’d have to spend two months interning in a hospital in Kampala supervised by one of their registration board nurses if she wanted a work permit to continue nursing in Uganda.  This was shocking news to all of us, and we’re still processing it, since 2 months without Heidi sounds pretty bleak to me, and two months in Kampala alone sounds pretty stressful to her.  But after God opened the doors so decisively at UNICEF, Mulago, Clinton Foundation, and EGPAF . . It was hard not to suspect that even this apparent setback had a purpose we do not yet realize.

FINALLY:  We finally got a bit to eat, a “breakfast” of falafel at 4, and managed to knock off some shopping and errands for team mates.  One of the freedoms of being without kids:  we had ice cream instead of dinner to wrap up our second 12-hour intense day.  

I started the day with a Psalm about justice for the fatherless and widow, and ended the day having witnessed that Justice in motion.  

The Vav

Scott here.  In the middle of my ultrasound clinic yesterday Jennifer stopped in to say goodbye as she headed for Kampala  with Heidi to visit the UNICEF office, trying to persuade them to continue to supply us with the therapeutic food we need for our malnutrition patients.  Of course, I expected life to notch up to "hectic" level.  We survive because we are a unit, juggling the myriad responsibilities of patient care, team coordination, and the seemingly endless list of general life maintenance tasks required to live in Africa (...last time I tried to flush the toilet there was no water which led to a two hour comedy of errors including eradication of a colony of biting ants just so I could touch the outside water valve connecting us to Michael's gravity water line).   

An hour and a half after she left, just as I finished my last ultrasound case, Jennifer called.  "The car just stopped and steam poured out from under the hood," she said.  She drove the Bartkoviches old car (~11 years old) so we could  equip it with new tires and put the machine into the hands of our young teachers.  We discussed lots of possible scenarios, including various explanations and solutions to the overheating and various car swaps.  She accepted the challenge of refilling the radiator while I got on the road to come and assist.   A half hour into my journey towards her, I found the road blocked by two trucks (one broken down and one which got stuck in the mud trying to pass) so I turned back to use an alternate path.  In the meantime, Jennifer called to say she got the car started again and we agreed that she could proceed.  I headed home, but halfway home, she called to say "We're halfway up the mountain and the thing died again."  So I turned around and headed back towards her.  Thirty-five kilometers of bone-jarring, bolt-loosening, washboard, cobblestone road to hurry over and ponder...why.

We're currently in a 10 week study of Michael Card's A Sacred Sorrow, a book subtitled Reaching out to God in the Lost Language of Lament.  His thesis:  Lament (weeping, protesting, complaining) to God is the path to worship of God. Eugene Peterson in the Foreward says, "...learning the language of lament is not only necessary to restore Christian dignity to suffering and repentence and death, it is necessary to provide a Christian witness to a world that has no language for and is therefore oblivious to the glories of wilderness and cross."  

After nearly 15 years in Bundibugyo, we continue to seek to understand the mystery of pain and suffering.  Immersed in the ocean of it nearly from dawn to dusk.  Yesterday alone:

I told the wife of our house-worker that their 15 week baby-in-utero was dead....

I found a three year old child who's shoulder (proximal humerus bone) was gone, eaten by infection...

I received three requests for financial assistance, for the mere basics of roofing sheets, chairs in the home, and secondary school fees....

We've studied and prayed, trying to comprehend the purpose of pain, to see it through the lens of the Scriptures, to develop a "theology of suffering".  The general response here is to explain through blame.  Usually a curse, a relationship out of kilter, ancestral spirits creating havoc.  

A Sacred Sorrow is not an apologetic for the existence of evil in the world, but rather a biblical examination of the real world response of several of the giants of the historical Judeo-Christian faith (Job David, Jeremiah,Jesus).  It seeks not to answer or justify, but merely to lend a hand to those who grieve.   

David's struggles in the wilderness led to a whole host of Psalms of Lament (Psalms 5, 13, 22, 28, 31, 38, 51, 55, 59, 69,109).  They all begin with his complaints, his struggles, his desperation.  But there is in each one a sudden transition, a switch in focus from Self to Elsewhere.  The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the vav (also spelled waw) marks the "crossing of the line" from whining to worship.  It always seems sudden and to me inexplicable.  This is what I want to understand....how does that happen?

Yesterday while I jostled and bumped towards a dead car, I wondered...  "What is the point of this?  This is a colossal waste of my time."  My head and throat ached from an annoying viral URI which had developed in the morning.  I was diverted from my work and kids to hours of struggle and frustration.  Compared to Job, of course, I could not complain, nevertheless I did.  

I did finally reach Jennifer in the mid-afternoon on the mountainside, gave her our reliable LandRover so she could proceed to Kampala.  I creeped back toward the mission in the crippled Nissan.  I broke down another half dozen times and arrived home at dusk, dirty, thirsty, yet thankful.  Thankful because it could have been worse?  I suppose partly.  Somewhere along the road, though, in the midst of my grumblings, I realized that I did have a need, a hunger.   I remembered David's imprecations which melted with "disturbing clarity" into worship.  My annoyance also morphed somewhere into something else.  In some way, I realized that I had no where else to go.  The path of pain seems to lead either to despair or worship.  I choose worship.

(N.B.  "A Sacred Sorrow" has an accompanying "Experience Guide", a booklet which leads through 10 weeks of readings in Job, the Psalms, Jeremiah, and the gospels. Both get five star ratings from Bundibugyo).

Pots, deep and numerous

About a week ago the passage about the widow who collected her neighbor’s pots and found them filled with oil sank into my mind and heart, with the realization that we only see as much grace as we risk needing.  

Like faith, risking the need for grace is a concept that sounds noble but feels a bit like death.  And as so often happens, when the Spirit supplies such a direct message, the need to grasp onto that truth follows close behind.

So though it is only Tuesday, the depth and volume of my week’s empty clay pots feels cavernous.  

It could have something to do with the fact that our 23 bed ward is crammed with 37 patients, a half-dozen of whom should be in an ICU with their sky-high malaria parasite counts or purulent brain fluids.  It could also be related to the fact that yesterday we confirmed that over 30 kilos of sugar and a similar amount of beans have slowly leaked out of our nutrition store in the last two months, a cup here and a bag there spilling into a life-threatening hemorrhage of dishonesty.  Or the fact that a few hours after the painful meeting in which we asked for the staff to return their store key . . . We got a disturbing email from UNICEF that not only canceled their visit which we had prepared for that day, but also implied that the one disbursement of amazing therapeutic milk powder they had bestowed in April would not be repeated because we were not following their rules closely enough.  Since the stock had dwindled and we had been led to believe for the last six weeks that the next shipment was imminent, this was quite a blow.  In between these two gaping potholes, the entire S2 class from our school (actually the ONLY class in which I have no biologic or sponsored children, so it could have been a worse shock) was dismissed temporarily after another meal disaster was met by student wildness and rock-throwing.  In the process of processing that yet more issues surfaced of envy, abusive behaviour, layers of disrespect and misunderstanding.  Sigh.  The empty jars lined up rather quickly.

And underlying all these dry vessels, the reality that some major family changes are imminent.  Last week Luke was offered a spot at Rift Valley Academy, a missionary boarding school in Kenya, for 11th grade beginning in August. Though I’ve had our kids on waiting lists for years for vague future spots . . . The chances of one opening in high school are usually slim.  So not until now have I had to face the risk and loss of that separation.

As these pots collected, though, the oil began to flow. First and foremost, we stand in awe of Luke’s readiness to give RVA a try.  He’s made the decision to go, with our blessing, in a mature and sensible manner, one that shows he is more ready than we are for this milestone.  Then the dismissal of the unruly students proceeded smoothly and has already made a difference in the school’s atmosphere.  We continue to pray for real conflict and reconciliation skills to grow out of a grasp of the Gospel at CSB.  Then the nursing staff worked incredibly hard to shoulder the burden of overwhelming disease, and two of our best nurses showed up (surprise!) on break from their further schooling to pitch in and help.  And lastly, after a day of emails and phone calls and indecision, UNICEF agreed to meet with Heidi and me on Thursday morning to work out an agreement that will allow continued cooperation.  

So that flowing oil actually opens another gaping pot, I have only driven to Kampala without Scott a couple of times, and do not feel confident about the challenges of the next few days, or about leaving my kids or the hospital ward.  The collaboration which brings resources to desperate kids means I need to risk needing that grace, but I’d appreciate prayers for the trip and for immersion in oily grace.

A tribute to his dad on Father's Day... from Luke

The doctor and his wife in Bundi live
With their four sweet little kids

Feeding and healing the hungry and poor
Ultrasounds, accounting, surgery and more

He's a mobile banker
Free money for those who have a hanker

A pizza chef of great acclaim
Never are two ever the same

Grilling tender quality steaks
Then delicious tacos he makes

On safari (a different mode)
"A willager on this road?"

He protects his family at Campsite 2
With a slingshot and a cooking pan too

He even has a small farm
One goat, two cows, he shows his charm

But they stamp and butt
They chase to cut

But he milks them still
So that we drink our fill

Sewing and super-gluing our lacerations
Trying to prevent macerations

And when the dangerous Ebola he did see
He stayed and and helped and did not flee

On muddy roads treacherous
In Clifford he comes to fetch us

Global digerati a techno master
He has a Mac that's always faster

An avid photographer Nikon d200
Some people ask, "how is he funded?"

He has a strange need for fire
Burning and exploding till the situation's dire

First his face, the kitchen burnt
The trash pit; you'd think he learnt?

My dad is the very best
Trial by fire
He has passed the test.

A Day of Celebration: striving for Peace and Purity

Bundikyora Church became an official congregation today as three elders took vows to strive for the peace and purity of the church.  I like that phrase, the balancing of righteousness with graceful love.  After decades of patient work by the mission and by Ugandan evangelists,  of teaching and training, of living and working and waiting, there are now three fully-formed Presbyterian churches in Bundibugyo.  Today’s milestone was especially poignant, as this was the location of Rick Gray’s and Greg and Beth Farrand’s effort to live in tents half-time in order to be more fully invested in the lives of the people of this village.  Their experiment ended when the ADF attacked in 1997 just a few days before the elders were to be interviewed.  Now 11 years later their dream became a reality.  Scott read from 1 Chronicles 29 as he spoke, and the parallels are interesting.  King David wanted to build the temple, and though he put in much effort and planning, God did not allow him to see the accomplishment of his vision, but rather delayed until his son Solomon reigned.  Rick, Greg, and Beth are no longer present as missionaries here, and their work passed into the hands of their “sons” in the faith long ago.  This group continued to struggle and meet when the village lived in an IDP camp; we remember visiting when a paltry dozen or so people gathered in a half-built school room.  So It was a privilege to see, at last, the glory of this day, where a couple hundred people crammed the shelter constructed beside the mud and wattle tin-roofed church.  Streamers of toilet paper, bright balloons, three choirs, enthusiastic drumming, and hours of ceremony marked the milestone.  As Scott reminded them, the temple was built by the offerings of the tribes of Israel, because they gave from loyal hearts.  And this church also rests not only on the vows of the new leaders, but on the faithfulness of the congregation.

We biked to this village, almost 10 km, with Michael and Karen this morning, leaving our kids in Luke’s care (Scotticus thankfully pitched in too), probably the first time we’ve done a “couples” outing leaving the kids behind.  The quiet plantations of cocoa trees punctuated by bustling villages, the rutted tracks, river crossings, tricky puddles, and breathtakingly steep hills . . . It was a beautiful but strenuous ride, fun to be out, to be pedaling, to be alive.  But besides the adventure aspect of biking to church in a dress through the mud, two things about the day really  stood out.  First, after the three new elders were “sworn in”, their first act was to wash the feet of their three wives.  Each knelt on the ground before his wife and held her foot, pouring over water and sort of baptizing her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It was a powerful image of servant leadership, a shocking stance to take in a culture where women are basically owned by men.  

Second, after the ceremony, we sat in a big circle to eat, scooping sticky rice from huge platters and topping it with salty steaming chicken.  And I realized afresh the depth and length of relationship that binds us here.  In our circle:  Bhiwa and Topi, Josephu and Rose, Charles and Mary, Kisembo (his wife Jessica just had a baby and could not come), Joyce, Pat, Michael and Karen.  These are the people whom we have worked with for so long, and it was a celebration not only of the newly-organized church, but of the culmination of the partnerships we share.  Our striving together for peace and purity has not always been easy:  we have walked with some of these people through the deaths of their children, through alcoholism and abuse, through infidelity.  But we’ve also walked with them through forgiveness, recommitment, and faithful perseverance, never letting go of purity even as we all seek peace.  Amen.

Cross-cultural Fun

In case anyone out there is  wondering, if you find yourself with a half-dozen young African doctors-in-training coming over for dinner, the hand-down (literally) best entertainment is Speed Uno.  I think Lydia Herron introduced us to this version of the game, which includes lots of switching of hands, changing of the order of turns, and enough random off-balance special-case scenarios to keep everyone on their toes.  And the ever-popular rule that whenever a 5 is played, all players slap their hands into a pile in the center, with the last person on top having to draw five cards.  Through obscure machinations an OB-GYN doctor who teaches at Mbarara University ( the second major medical school in the country, after Makerere) arranged for six young med students who are just completing their studies and awaiting placements in internships to spend a month or two in Bundibugyo!  We invited them to come for dinner, to talk about their lives, their goals, what it means to serve in a remote place.  They were personable and confident young men, comfortable with each other, friendly, from several corners of Uganda.  After eating we introduced them to Speed Uno, and that broke any residual barriers of reticence as they laughed and teased each other and tried to win.  We gave them “The Purpose Driven Life” to structure their 40 days in Bundibugyo around seeking God.  Don’t know what will come of any of this . . . We certainly need doctors, so if any sense a calling to return we’d be thrilled.  But in the meantime we had a rare evening of riotous cross-cultural card-playing fun.

Part and Parcel, Ear to Ear

I found myself yesterday afternoon in a long and tedious meeting which Scott was supposed to attend by virtue of his appointment to a community-based committee that manages the health center.  But he was being overwhelmed by 25 ultrasound referrals at the hospital (either the overzealous referring of unsure visiting doctors-in-training here for the month, or the passive-aggressive action of the usual ultrasound staff refusing to screen out the routine cases and only pass on questionable ones to Scott, in protest against action to stop them from illegal surcharges, or divine opportunities for him to serve and teach . .. he was never quite sure).  While I struggled with the restless sense that the hours were slipping through my hands leaving much left undone, I found I could not easily slip away.  For one thing, these are the people among whom I have spent most of the last decade and a half, and I care about the issues they are raising.  For another, the elected official chairing the meeting made me sit right beside him and gave a speech about how we are “part and parcel” of the community and the work.  Sigh.  So I listened and even challenged or supported various points.  Instead of “shoulder to shoulder” the idiom for cooperation I heard was “ear to ear”.  Sort of an interesting picture of us here, ear to ear with our colleagues, a meeting of the minds and a cooperative physical pushing against disease and poverty. The day only got more ear to ear as it drew to a close.  A couple of newly-weds came to greet us, and as we chatted I reflected on the privilege of moving from a relationship of parent/sponsor to one of colleague/friend.  Am I getting old?  I guess so.  Perhaps the wisdom of age or the whisper of the spirit, I decided to offer the wife prenatal vitamins, sensing she might need them soon if not immediately.  I called her aside and learned that her last period was two weeks before the wedding . . . So we did an impromptu ultrasound with our portable machine, and once again had the fun privilege of introducing new parents to the waving limbs and fluttering heart of their tiny fetus.  But this time it was not American team mates, but Babwisi friends, with whom we could share the same joy, and hug, and pull them into staying for dinner with our family.  And the due date:  Christmas Day.  Fun. By the time we cleared up from dinner and the long day and got the kids down to Friday night clubs at school (they attend games club where Jack teaches his friends great short English boggle and scrabble words, crafts club where Julia nestles in with the girls and learns to crochet and knit, and math club where Caleb reluctantly rises to the challenge of interesting problems) . . . We were exhausted, and ready to relax, settling down on the couch with Luke after about 14 straight hours on the go.  But as soon as we hit the couch there was knocking on the door, a bit ominous in the dark.  Particularly when the dark face at the door is covered with blood.  Our neighbor Buligi and his wife stood there with a knot of relatives, and we immediately sat Buligi down.  His face had been mangled from a motorcycle accident.  Scott ended up taking him down to the health center to do a little plastic surgery by flashlight with the cheerful and competent help of the theatre nurse, who was one of our original “Mother and Child Survival Project” community volunteers more than a decade ago.  Buligi’s is the second case this week of stitches in the operating theatre after a motorcycle accident:  the other was our lab technician.  Both are responsible adult men with one wife, married in the church, with jobs, families (which makes them far from average).  They are not reckless teens out for joy rides.  One was taking blood samples to the central lab, the other coming from taking soap to his boy at a boarding school.  But the crowded road, the meandering goats and pedestrians, the deep rusts and jagged loose rocks, the sharp turns and bushy roadsides . . . Make for danger.  So Scott ended the day ear to ear with our worried neighbors and our hospital staff, part and parcel of the night’s work.

Bullying

There is an interesting comment on the post about DDT, from someone who identifies himself as a coffee buyer and concludes that the concept of an entire district losing its “organic certification” is patently false. The middle-man cocoa buyers are bullying the farmers with this threat. I find that quite believable: perhaps it is this way all over the world, but the bullying culture seems well developed in Africa. On the surface the society seems relatively peaceful to the outsider, the strong clan identification and respect for elders. But underneath, there is violence and fear. Older kids bully younger ones, a huge problem at our boarding school in past years (though one we’re fighting), as new students find themselves surrounded and threatened and relieved of their stashes of sugar meant to sweeten their morning porridge, or of their pocket-change meant to buy pens or soap. Teachers bully students. A friend told Luke last night that his teacher told him that unless he stopped playing soccer in the afternoon break time, the hour and a half of exercise and recreation that breaks up the long school day, he was going to fail that teacher’s class. Men bully their wives, and parents their children, using beatings or withholding food to assert their power. Staff bully patients, berating them at times for disturbing their peace. Families bully their relatives when they accuse each other of witchcraft and extract expensive fines and rituals for peace. Harsh words, raised hands or sticks, coercive threats, turn the interaction into one of power and abuse. So the idea of cocoa buyers pressuring farmers with the threat of boycott seems quite real. And with most bullying, one must query what the bully seeks to gain. A lower price for the product, and a higher profit margin? A political point scored against a government policy? Or just a sense of control? And perhaps that points to the reason the culture of bullying thrives in a place like this. When the vagaries of international trade and exploitation of resources have depleted a continent, when the ravages of disease and drought lurk around the corner of every month, when daily survival is a struggle and the outcome by no means certain, people want a small sphere in which they feel some sense of security. They want some way to manipulate the world in their favor. So from the hungry teen all the way up to the shady businessman, the stronger pushes the weaker, and feels stronger still. Sounds like something out of Ecclesiastes, another lament. And a warning to my own heart. Lament lays the injustice before the throne of God, rather than bullying the bullies into submission.