One month back in the heavy lush greenery of Uganda, and this anthem which we sang so often frequently runs through my head.
We love this land. The most formative years of our family life were lived in this land. We risked our lives for this land. We have deep roots in the people we left behind here. So it is hard to see not only the spectacular potential but also the heartache. I think in the last 8 years in Kenya, it was easy to feel like it was pretty similar. Sure, a decade down the development highway, but basically comparable. Then I found myself explaining the last month to a Kenyan colleague on the phone yesterday and . . .well, there are no interns or medical officers of any kind on the wards, actually most days nurses are alone. There are few drugs. Marc is working on oxygen tanks because there is rarely enough power to run an oxygen concentrator, and there won't be enough for incubators. There are not really hospital records other than plain lined paper books. There are no vital signs taken. There is no documentation most of the time of medications given. The health center 4 where we worked most of our time has persevered with good maternity services thanks to the faithful nurses we invested in . . but the rest of the care has fallen from "one of the best in the country" to a level of dingy sad mediocrity as the supervision fell to a doctor who seems mostly interested in procedures he can charge extra for. Private clinics have sprung up like weeds and the medicine meant for the poor is rumored to be divided amongst them. Patients shrugged off their lack of an injection or lab test as understandable since they could not afford to bribe action. The inertia is palpable. We have also been told so many stories of deception, of conflicts over money or land, that our heads are spinning about who to believe or how to function without believing anyone too fully. The team sank thousands of dollars into a new transformer to solve electricity problems that has become a year-long saga of one excuse after another for failed results.
Then the bright spots shine through, our friend the medical superintendent with integrity and passion and a sense of responsibility that must be giving him ulcers, carrying on in Dr. Jonah's footsteps with wisdom and sacrifice. The young men who tell us that even though we can't always be around, they are our "seeds" and want to carry on what we did. The student we interviewed who said she came to CSB feeling hopeless and sad after losing her parents and being left with her grandmother, but then chapel after chapel, service after service, she kept hearing that God saw her, loved her, valued her, and she started to believe it. So much so that she has excelled her way through with a vision to counsel others. A fair-trade cocoa business making a chocolate bar sourced from Bundibugyo. Girls playing the drums in church.
O Uganda, we laid our future in your hands in 1993, and we still stand with you longing for better.
Tomorrow we will fly back to Kenya for a week. The Lubwisi and Swahili are waging a war in my head and on my tongue already, so I'm bracing for a setback. We look forward to a 20-degrees-cooler elevation and to not feeling quite so foreign. A long time ago we became sojourners, strangers and pilgrims, people of divided loyalties. Now I'm realizing that alien heartache subdivides and fractures even further, not just North America vs. Africa, but each home we have loved, and even each team we pray for and support intermittently.
Here we go.
We love this land. The most formative years of our family life were lived in this land. We risked our lives for this land. We have deep roots in the people we left behind here. So it is hard to see not only the spectacular potential but also the heartache. I think in the last 8 years in Kenya, it was easy to feel like it was pretty similar. Sure, a decade down the development highway, but basically comparable. Then I found myself explaining the last month to a Kenyan colleague on the phone yesterday and . . .well, there are no interns or medical officers of any kind on the wards, actually most days nurses are alone. There are few drugs. Marc is working on oxygen tanks because there is rarely enough power to run an oxygen concentrator, and there won't be enough for incubators. There are not really hospital records other than plain lined paper books. There are no vital signs taken. There is no documentation most of the time of medications given. The health center 4 where we worked most of our time has persevered with good maternity services thanks to the faithful nurses we invested in . . but the rest of the care has fallen from "one of the best in the country" to a level of dingy sad mediocrity as the supervision fell to a doctor who seems mostly interested in procedures he can charge extra for. Private clinics have sprung up like weeds and the medicine meant for the poor is rumored to be divided amongst them. Patients shrugged off their lack of an injection or lab test as understandable since they could not afford to bribe action. The inertia is palpable. We have also been told so many stories of deception, of conflicts over money or land, that our heads are spinning about who to believe or how to function without believing anyone too fully. The team sank thousands of dollars into a new transformer to solve electricity problems that has become a year-long saga of one excuse after another for failed results.
Then the bright spots shine through, our friend the medical superintendent with integrity and passion and a sense of responsibility that must be giving him ulcers, carrying on in Dr. Jonah's footsteps with wisdom and sacrifice. The young men who tell us that even though we can't always be around, they are our "seeds" and want to carry on what we did. The student we interviewed who said she came to CSB feeling hopeless and sad after losing her parents and being left with her grandmother, but then chapel after chapel, service after service, she kept hearing that God saw her, loved her, valued her, and she started to believe it. So much so that she has excelled her way through with a vision to counsel others. A fair-trade cocoa business making a chocolate bar sourced from Bundibugyo. Girls playing the drums in church.
O Uganda, we laid our future in your hands in 1993, and we still stand with you longing for better.
Tomorrow we will fly back to Kenya for a week. The Lubwisi and Swahili are waging a war in my head and on my tongue already, so I'm bracing for a setback. We look forward to a 20-degrees-cooler elevation and to not feeling quite so foreign. A long time ago we became sojourners, strangers and pilgrims, people of divided loyalties. Now I'm realizing that alien heartache subdivides and fractures even further, not just North America vs. Africa, but each home we have loved, and even each team we pray for and support intermittently.
Here we go.
First stop was Fort Portal, ran into Pat immediately, headed to get coffee at Andrew's Gardens and of course a former CSB teacher passed by to chat. The beauty of Uganda is that we find people we know so easily.
Our Fort Portal team, Jenna and Pat, discipling young women and creating beautiful handmade fabric-based items to give them an income and hope for supporting their families.
Isaiah and Ivan are two Kule Leadership Students, medicine and nursing, with huge hearts for God and others, and great skills in their final stages of training. They met us for dinner as we arrived in Kampala on our way to Kenya.
This was our favorite restaurant, back in the day, Indian food . . . and of course one of the waiters remembered us.
Even at the mall in Kampala, the guy doing the security check says "Dr. Scott??!!?" Turns out he was a church leader from Bundibugyo back in the day, and asked about our kids by name, so of course we had to show him their pictures . . .
2 comments:
It must be so nice to feel known and appreciated. We miss you so much! Praying for your time in Kenya. If you come through Naivasha, feel free to ask Megan if you can stay a few nights in our guest room. I don't think the rabbits have had babies yet, but Dinner has started laying eggs (feel free to try one). S, J, T, C, D
It must be so nice to feel so known and appreciated. Feel free to ask Megan if you can stay in our guest room if you come through Naivasha! I don't think PJ and Esco have had babies yet (or are on the way to it), but I hear Dinner has started laying eggs, so feel free to try one! We miss you so much and Doro asks about you very very often. Lots of hugs!
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