Zambia - the good and the challenging!

At the end of October, we traveled to Lusaka, Zambia to meet with all of the other MCC country representatives from African countries as well as some MCCers that work in our Headquarters in Akron and Winnipeg.  Here is a summary of the good and the challenging aspects of our trip:

Challenging – spending the night before traveling at an airport hotel and being woken up at 3am to get to the airport in time for our 5am flight

So excited!  And looking bright - eyed and wide awake at 5 am!

Good – Natalie’s incredible excitement about being woken in the middle of the night to get on a plane – she loves flying!  She was getting excited about every little thing – when we were driving to the airport: “Mom, look at all the planes, Uganda has so many planes!”  And when we got out of the taxi at the airport:  “Mom, look at the white line on the ground (just a white line to mark where cars can park) – it’s so pretty!”

 
Good – the children’s play lounge at Nairobi airport.  This lounge was a lifesaver, especially since our flight to Zambia was delayed an hour.  Every airport should have one of these.

 

The whole group 

Good – getting to reconnect with the other new East African reps – 4 of the 5 countries have new reps, so we were all in orientation together.  It was great to see them all again and find out how everyone is doing several months into our placement

Good – getting to meet the other MCC Africa reps, hear more about the work MCC is doing in Africa, and getting some good ideas to implement in our Uganda program

Challening – NEITHER of my kids would stay in the childcare!  Natalie is generally very hesitant with new people, and Nathan is in the stage where he has a lot of separation anxiety.  So Natalie spent most of the meetings in the corner watching movies, playing on our kindle, or playing right outside of the meeting room, and Nathan spent most of the meetings sleeping in his carrier, playing on the floor, or screaming in childcare.  A good summary view of my divided attention is the one time when I was supposed to share something in front of the group:

A typical scene - trying to focus in a meeting while keeping Nathan happy

Right before this session, I received news that Nathan was screaming in childcare, so I went to nurse him quickly and calm him down.  The meeting was starting so I handed him off to Muigai, but he was still hungry so he started screaming.  Muigai took him on a walk to calm him down, and Natalie came up to me and said she had to go to the bathroom.  I took her quickly to the bathroom (but every mom knows the more you try to hurry up a 3 year old, the slower they move!) and then took my seat in the front of the room.  As I was talking and trying to focus on what I was saying, I noticed that Natalie had abandoned her movie and was twirling around in the curtains in the back of the room!

 Good - being grateful once again that MCC is such a family-friendly organization and nobody minded my two kids hanging around the meetings all week.

Good – reconnecting with Boniface Chembe, a Zambian friend from EMU, meeting his wife, and having him show us around Lusaka and tell us more about the history and current political situation in Zambia.  It's a beautiful, well organized city with great roads!

Challenging – the heat!  Zambia was hot – in the 90s all week.  Having Nathan spend so much time sleeping in his carrier was like having a mini-furnace strapped to my chest!

Good – getting to visit an animal park in Zambia – Natalie had a great time seeing the animals and playing on their huge playground with Muigai, and I got to rest in the shade with Nathan.

On our way to the animal park!

 Challenging – Having another trip planned to Masaka in Southern Uganda just days after returning from Zambia.  I have to say I am pleasantly surprised at how well the children have handled all the traveling, and I will write more about our trip to Masaka in the next post…  

Stella Matutina

          Mary (not her real name) was abducted from her home by the Lord's Resistance Army as a young teenager.  She was forced to marry one of the soldiers and gave birth to three sons, one of whom passed away.  After ten years of captivity, she was finally able to escape with her two sons.  Deeply traumatized and possessing no skills to support herself, Mary faced seemingly insurmountable challenges to rebuilding a life for herself and her sons.
        However, Mary was one of the first students admitted into Stella Matutina, a Catholic girls boarding school that was originally started to educate girls who had been abducted by the LRA.  After spending four years at this high school, she was able to find a sponsor to continue her education, and she now works as a nurse at a hospital in Northern Uganda, able to support herself and her two sons.  When she first arrived at the school, she felt a lot of anger and hostility towards her sons.  Through many conversations and counseling by the sisters at the school, she was able to realize and accept that her sons were also innocent victims, and respond to them with motherly love and care.

Sister Sophie with Nathan

     Sister Sophie was one of the first sisters to work at this school.  Sophie is a warm and friendly woman, originally from Kenya, who responds to the girls with compassion and love.  On our visit last week, we had the opportunity to talk with Sister Sophie and hear more about the vision and work at Stella Matutina.
    Because there has been peace in Northern Uganda since 2006, the current students at the school are not former abductees; however, many of them were young girls during the war and they have trauma from experiencing the war and losing parents and other relatives.  There are currently 218 girls, 19 teachers, and 8 sisters at the school.  The school is set on ten acres in a rural area where they grow a lot of local food to feed the students and staff.
    MCC Uganda has partnered with Stella for several years.  MCC's approach to education is to sponsor schools instead of individual students, so that entire communities can benefit from support instead of just individuals.  At Stella, we provide scholarships for 30 of the most vulnerable students, and we also provide funding for solar energy equipment, as sporadic electricity was one of the biggest challenges that the school faced.

The science lab at Stella was built with funds provided by MCC

     We have been busy the past few weeks as we just recently returned from a week and a half in Lusaka, Zambia, and then we head out to Masaka in southern Uganda tomorrow.  I hope to post more soon about our recent travels...

50 years of independence and first family road trip

   The mood in Uganda last week was very celebratory as Uganda celebrated its "Jubilee" - 50 years since independence!  The city was decked out with decorations celebrating Uganda - banners and balloons at the roundabouts, and banners with the stripes of their flag on the telephone poles:

 They had a huge celebration service in town that was attended by 15 different presidents and other VIPs.

 We didn't feel like battling traffic, crowds, and heat with young children, so we celebrated the Jubilee at home.  We spent a great day talking, laughing, singing, and dancing with friends.  Here is Natalie wearing her cool sunglasses and dancing:

  In other news, we took our first family road trip in Uganda last Thursday.  One of the best things about my job is that it is very family friendly, and the children can come with us whenever we need to travel.  However, one of the stressful parts of my job is that the children can come with us whenever we need to travel :)  Traveling with young children is both a blessing and a stressor!  I am trying hard to view our travels as "fun adventures" instead of exhausting feats of patience and perseverance.  We have a lot of "fun adventures" coming up - we were in Northern Uganda last Thursday, will be leaving very early next Wed to go to Zambia for a week (we have to arrive at the airport at 2am!!), then Southern Uganda the week after we get back, and then Kenya for three weeks in December. 

So last Thursday was our first adventure when we went to visit one of our partners, Stella Matutina, a Catholic girls boarding school in Northern Uganda.  Stella Matutina was originally started as a school for girls who were coming out of captivity with the Lord's Resistance Army. 

It was supposed to take 3 hours to get there, but because of traffic it took nearly five hours each way, making a total of 9 1/2 hours in the car in one day!

I was crammed in the middle back seat between the two car seats, and I have perfected the art of leaning over Nathan's carseat to breastfeed while we are both still buckled - a very important skill for long car rides with a baby!  Amazingly,  both kids did very well during the car ride which gives me some hope for our upcoming adventures. 

We had a very nice visit and returned home with a full car - we had 44 oranges that we bought for $1.20, about 40 pounds of peanuts in a huge sack that the Sisters had given to us (they grow peanuts at the school) and 4 live chickens for our newly built chicken house!  The chickens were in the back of our Surf with their legs tied together - several times when we hit a bump we heard "cluck, cluck" and the sound of wings flapping wildly.  I was concerned the chickens would fly over the seat and land on me or the kids, but thankfully they remained in the back.  We almost came back with a kitten as well - Natalie spent most of the visit playing with two kittens at the school, which the Sisters insisted we should bring home with us.  However, we already have a kitten plus a dog and some chickens, so we decided that is enough animals for now! 

In the next post I'll explain a little more about Stella Matutina and the good work they are doing.

Our first harvest!

Last week on Thursday, we had our first harvest from our garden!  We were able to pick some of our sukumas (collard greens) Above is a picture of some of our maize, beans, and tomatoes that are still growing.  Below is a picture of our sukumas.

                            Here is Natalie proudly showing us the first sukuma leaf that we picked

A baby snail on a sukuma leaf - snails are very common here and can grow to be quite big

                                           Our final pile of sukumas before they were cooked

                                       They were delicious!  Even Nathan enjoyed them:

Building Houses with Sticks and Leaves

                                 “Good, but busy”

 

That was my standard response for the first 6 months of this year when anyone would ask me how we were doing.  Of course, it’s to be expected that having a new baby, caring for a 3 year old, finishing up one job, preparing for a new job, and moving to another continent is enough to keep anyone busy.  Not to mention the everyday tasks of laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, and cleaning (although to be honest I didn’t get around to cleaning too much during those months!)

Upon arriving in Uganda, our pace of life slowed considerably, and for the first time in several years I can honestly say that I’m not busy.  I feel a twinge of guilt in typing that, and also a strong desire to justify myself so people don’t assume I sit around all day watching TV and eating chocolate.  After all, I have a job, a husband, and two young children, so my days are still full of activities.  It’s just that the pace in which those activities are done has slowed down considerably to a saner, healthier pace.    

As I’ve been in the midst of adjusting to this new pace, our pastor in our home congregation, Aubrey Spears, has begun a sermon series on the unhurried life that I’ve been listening to via podcast.  The podcasts are here, and I would highly recommend this challenging, crosscultural message on the way we think about time.

 As I have been reflecting on my own suddenly slowed down life, I have been struck with the truth of our cultural assumption that busyness = significance.   Even as I was typing the first paragraph of this blog, I felt a sense of pride in all of the things that I had going on.  It’s as if I must be a competent, strong person in order to do so much and balance so many things. 

But is our cultural assumption that busy = significant really true?  Are the things that we so frantically do every day getting us to where we want to go?  Do our many activities accurately reflect our priorities and our values?

One aspect of East African culture that I greatly admire is the conviction that people and relationships are of utmost importance, and that taking the time to simply be with others is a very valuable use of time.  When I first started working as an intern at Beacon of Hope in Kenya, I would grab a cup of tea during tea break and take it to my office, so I could efficiently continue with my work as I drank my tea.  I soon realized that I was missing an opportunity to gather with my coworkers, enjoy stories and laughter, and connect with others.  Tea break soon became one of my favorite parts of the day as I came to so highly appreciate the opportunity to step away from work and connect with people.

In this season of my life, I am very grateful for the opportunity to have a slower paced life and enjoy the gift of time that I have to just be with my husband and my children.  Imbedded cultural messages are hard to forget, and I still sometimes feel like I’m not busy enough and I should come up with more activities to fill up my time. 

Yesterday, while I was putting Nathan down for a nap, Maureen, our Ugandan househelp, was sitting outside with Natalie.  When I went out to see what they were doing, I found that they had built a house for the ants out of sticks and leaves, and they continued to play contentedly with sticks and leaves for over an hour.  What an amazing gift, that I could have the time to be with my daughter and do nothing more than build houses of sticks together.  I pray that I will be able to recognize this slower pace for the gift that it truly is and embrace a slower, saner, relationship-centered life.     

Natalie's going back to school...

     After a frustrating parents meeting where the school was not legally allowed to give details of what happened, they called another meeting on Saturday where they were finally able to share with parents what happened to Sunshine.

       Contrary to what the newspapers claimed, the fence and gates had been completed and had passed safety inspection, and a full time pool attendant had been hired.  The pool attendant cleaned the pool in the morning, and then latched the gate but forgot to put the padlock on.  Sunshine’s class was playing in the sandbox below the pool (the ground slopes so it would be difficult for the teachers to see the pool from the sandbox).  Sunshine wandered away from her class, unlatched the gate, and tragically fell into the pool.  The pool attendant pulled her out and she was still alive at that point – the school administrators and then the EMT workers tried to save her for almost an hour but she didn’t make it.

          We have decided to send her back to the school because the school has taken numerous safety measures in response to this tragedy  including getting a safety net, a pool alarm, a CCTV camera, and a pool attendant who will be sitting within the fence any time children are at school.  The fence, which was one meter high, will be rebuilt to be 2 meters high.  The pool has already been drained and there will not be any swimming classes this term out of respect for the family. 

       During the meeting, parents listed about 6 other schools and pools where young children have drowned recently.  Yet, every school that we visited either had a pool on the premises or brought the children to a pool for swimming lessons.  I am really uncomfortable with the idea of having swimming at preschool; however, at this point we feel that her current school will be the safest since there won't be any swimming this term and they have put so many safety measures in place.  One parent commented that their pool will now be the "safest pool in Africa."  We will continue to look into other options and then decide if we will continue to send her there next term when swimming classes resume. 

       In addition, we had put a lot of time and effort into helping Natalie adjust to the school.  Natalie can be slow to warm up to new people and places, so I was able to go with her to the school's "summer camp" and remain with her the whole time, giving her a chance to get to know some of the teachers, the other students, and the school before the new school year started.  The first week of school went better than we expected because she was already familiar with the school and one of her teachers.  We think that starting her in a new school in the middle of the term would be a very difficult adjustment for her.

      Please continue to pray for this situation:

 - Pray for Sunshine's family as they continue to grieve

 - Pray for the teachers and administrators who are devastated and have been traumatized by this tragedy

 - Pray for the four teachers who are in prison and will be going to court this week.  Some of them have young children in prison with them.  We learned that it is the police, not the parents, who are pressing charges against the teachers.  Although clearly they should have been watching the children more closely, any parent knows that things can happen so quickly with young children and I'm sure they are also devastated by what has happened. 

 - Pray for peace of mind for us as we send Natalie back to school and for a good adjustment for her as she goes back. 

Tragedy at Natalie's School

      The excitement surrounding Natalie’s first day of preschool last week has quickly changed to shock and heartbreak as we learned that one of her classmates drowned after falling into the school pool on Monday.

                When I went to pick Natalie up at 1pm on Monday, I noticed that there were more cars than usual (some of the children stay the whole day until 5pm) and there seemed to be anxiety on the faces of the teachers and staff.  I overheard some mothers saying that they had been told that school was ending early, and then I noticed two ambulances in the parking lot.  When I asked what was going on, I couldn’t get any answers.   I called the school later and I was told that there was an accident and I would be told more at an appropriate time.

 For some reason, they had not called either myself or Muigai to tell us school was ending early.  Truthfully, I am very glad they forgot to call us because they were telling parents, “Was your child at school today?  Please come pick them up as soon as possible, there has been an incident and school is closing early.”  I think I would have been completely panicked if I had received a call like that.  I am grateful that by the time I realized something had happened, I had Natalie safe and healthy at my side.

                The story is receiving a lot of media attention, and there has been a story in the paper every day for the past 4 days about the school and the young girl Sunshine.  We learned what had happened through the newspapers since the school was still not communicating any details to the parents. 

        We had a parents meeting at the school yesterday where we learned that four of the teachers had been arrested for negligence and the school could legally not talk about the details of what happened until the teachers were released, which was supposed to happen last evening.  They claimed that the fence around the pool had been completed (the pool had just been built), all of the gates were locked, and there were 9 children playing in the sandbox right next to the pool being supervised by two teachers when it happened.  They claimed that the details given in the newspaper were not accurate, but they could not provide us clear information on exactly how Sunshine ended up in the pool. (the newspapers claimed that she wandered away from class and was in the pool for 30 minutes before being found, which the administration says is not medically possible since they were performing CPR for one hour and were able to get a pulse back at one point).

                Of course, all the parents were frustrated and do not feel comfortable sending our children back until we know exactly what happened.  The administration said they would communicate more once the teachers are released and they are able to speak with the teachers.  The school has been closed all week and they are hoping to reopen on Monday.  They have already installed numerous additional safety measures for the pool and the school in general to try to ensure that something like this will not happen again.

                Please pray for Sunshine’s family and the school community in dealing with this tragic accident.  Please also pray for wisdom for us as we try to determine if we should keep Natalie at the school or find another school for her to go to.  We have been very shaken up by this – as any parent knows, there is always anxiety with taking your child to school for the first time and entrusting others with the safety and well being of your child, so the timing of this just one week after Natalie started school is making me nervous to send her anywhere!

First day of school, backpacks, and body image

      Natalie had her first day of preschool yesterday!  We found a small preschool right near our house and office that we think will be a great fit for Natalie.  On the first day of school, they rented a huge bouncy castle with a slide for the kids to play on – Natalie had a great time!  For now, she will be going to school three mornings a week, and coming with me to the office the other two mornings with a babysitter.  My coworkers may not agree because of the extra noise, but I love having the kids in the office with me!  Natalie always pops into my office to tell me random things, loves to help our custodian clean, and always helps get tea and cassava for Muigai and myself.  For now, I’m working in the office in the mornings and spending the afternoons at home with the kids. 
Here is Natalie looking all grown up with her big backpack
    
    I would like to vent for a minute about the difficulty I had in finding Natalie a backpack.  She wanted a pink backpack so we went to five different supermarkets in search of a backpack (here supermarkets are like Walmart in that they often have lots of household items, clothes, electronics, etc in addition to food).  The supermarkets only had a small selection of backpacks for girls, and every single one of them had a white pop star (Hannah Montana, High School Musical, etc) or a white cartoon character (Disney princess, Barbie, etc).  The worst one I saw was one that had the word “Beauty” in sparkly letters and then a generic, Barbie-like character with pale white skin, blue eyes, and long flowing blonde hair.

    When I worked at EMU, I wrote and presented a presentation on media and body image, and I touched on issues of race, globalization, and body image.  Every culture has their own standards of beauty, but globalization is allowing us to export our Western standards of beauty (thin, pale skin, Caucasian facial features, long flowing hair, etc) all over the world.  This leads to messages to women like this commercial from Egypt for "Fair and Lovely" skin lightening cream, where the woman claims that her dark skin has prevented her from landing her dream job:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIUQ5hbRHXk

   So the backpack with the generic blond “beauty” is bad enough in the US, where only a few girls will ever look like her.  But it’s terrible in Uganda, where 0% of ethnic Ugandans will ever have white skin and long flowing blond hair.  I refuse to buy a backpack for my daughter which promotes a standard of beauty that she will never be able to attain.  She will always have beautiful brown skin and tightly curly hair, and I want her growing up with the message that those features are equally beautiful. 

   It also really bothers me that this encourages young Ugandan girls to idolize American pop stars.  I wish someone would come up with a line of backpacks that feature strong African heroes like Wangari Maathai, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Leymah Gbowee – women that young girls can be proud to aspire to emulate.

   I want to be clear that my frustration is not directed towards the Ugandan supermarkets, but rather towards the corporations that mass produce these backpacks in China and ship them, along with Western standards of beauty, all over the world.  Because these bags are made so cheaply, they undersell local products and make it difficult for local alternatives to arise.  I am sure there are other places to buy good backpacks here, and some local alternatives, but we haven't been here long enough yet to know where to find them.

   Anyway, I was finally able to find Natalie a nice, plain pink backpack at the market across the street from our office just a few days before school started and she was very happy with her new bag.