To Be Human

This will quite possibly be the last entry, given I’m boarding a Kigali-bound bus in three hours to head down to the far reaches of Rwanda. I don’t imagine I’ll have a lot of time down there to document my experiences, as I’ll be WORKED LIKE A DOG by the professor with the rest of the research team. *Sigh* I’m such a student.

The last weeks in Gulu were simultaneously quiet and absolutely chaotic. Quiet, in that interviews had died down and I was just wrapping up. Absolutely chaotic, in that I was “just wrapping up.” Both on a research-y and personal level.

It’s harder to say goodbye the second time, believe it or not. One person in particular comes to mind: Novia, the nearby restaurant worker I’d befriended. We’re about the same age, and we’d bonded a lot in between the daily servings of beans. Toward the end of my stay, we exchanged numbers. For some reason, the following day, her number showed up as “unknown” when she began calling me and I opted not to answer (you better believe I’m not going to fall for any 15-year-old shenanigans… they’re getting smarter every day, I swear it).

That evening, I popped in to Timbo Guest House to greet everyone and down the $2 meal. She quickly approached me, clearly disgruntled, though I was still unaware exactly what the problem was. She whipped out her cell phone, hurriedly hitting a few keys and thrusting it in my face.

What I saw on that small Motorola screen will forever be engrained in my memory.

I replicate it here for your convenience:

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-Recently Dialed Calls-
1. MY LOVE
2. MY LOVE
3. MY LOVE
4. MY LOVE
5. MY LOVE
6. MY LOVE
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HAHA!!! Someone make it stop, seriously. Nonetheless, I was flattered, and I apologized for my lack of answer and bid my “maybe-the-one?” goodbye with a heavy heart. And, of course, blatantly waved my wedding-ring-actually-my-mom’s-toe-ring-I’m-serious at her to ensure she understood I have unbreakable ties back home. Hell, I made a promise with that toe ring and I’m not one to go back on my word.

The Olympics is such an amazing phenomenon (minus the whole “wtf why does China hate human rights” thing), and it’s so great to be able to have common ground on which everyone can connect. A little friendly competition is healthy, right? Televisions everywhere broadcast the events 24/7, and in entering my guesthouse, there’s one employee who is always in the main room, eyes glued to the screen. “You’re really a fan, huh Godfrey?”

WELL, he was soon to put me in my place. “Rohbet, I should be there right now!” “…??” “It’s true, Rohbet, I’ve won all the preliminary competitions in Uganda in [track/running] [sorry I’m athlete-illiterate but it was something like that] and I should be there representing my country.”

We watched the screen together as the next race was about to begin, and he pointed at the “Best Times” displayed with disgust. “I could beat him… and him… and that one, that’s not even running.” Confused and a little skeptical, I approached his mom, coincidentally the owner of the guesthouse. “It’s true Rohbet,” she assured me, “he’s won every competition here in all of Uganda. He should be there. But we’re too poor and we don’t have the right connections… Ugandans don’t want him representing us, and the well-connected runners get to go.”

WOW, what?! I don’t really know what to take away from this experience, so here it is merely as it is for you to dissect. If there are more Godfreys in the world (which there undoubtedly are), know that the Olympics are a SHAM! Or at least not entirely representative. Right? But anyway, honored to be in the presence of someone who should have been on the screen before me, I shook Godfrey’s hand and told him I hope to see him there in four years. He didn’t hear me – he was again focused on the glow of the television. When I came back out a few hours later, he was still there.

I also had a chance to meet with the former Mozambique president and the current UN envoy to the Juba Peace Talks, the dialogue upon which the fate of the 22-year-war of Northern Uganda depends. What an experience! Tagging along with some well-connected NGO friends (college has taught me how to network and perhaps little else?), I slid into the small conference room with the other “chosen” 25 people and watched on with interest. A three-hour discussion ensued, touching upon an array of really interesting, current issues that need to be dealt with. A number of people in the displacement camps actually don’t want to return home, wishing instead to remain with the better-developed infrastructure of the Camps. Their home villages often lack access to even basic education, let alone adequate health facilities. While this used to define their way of life, many of these people have grown accustomed to having their children attend school and to having the ability to obtain malaria medicine if they get sick. There’s little incentive for some of them to return to their ancestral lands, especially as the ties of “culture” have gotten weaker over time. Interesting stuff, and I certainly don’t pretend to know how to deal with these issues.

All in all, though, these last few days were mostly defined by a single interaction – the first and last of this summer – with one of the sponsored children of The Child Is Innocent.

As I’d worked with the students last summer, I’d bonded most with this girl. Her eagerness, hope, and dedication really stood out from the already amazingly talented crowd, and I may as well just say it – she named me Nyero, my street name over here. It means “laughter”… go figure with that one? To be fair, it’s the male version of her name. Good enough for me.

Upon arriving this summer, I was excited to meet up and see what I’d missed in the past year. Sadly, I learned right away that the “one girl who had been dropped temporarily from the program because she got pregnant”… was this girl. I was totally shocked.

So without my having seen her for the entire summer due to these unfortunate circumstances, I managed to arrange an “official” meeting with her on my very last day in Gulu to check in and see how she was doing.

My boda pulled up to the gate of her aunt’s modest home (both of her parents have died) and I pushed open the iron door with the TCII employee by my side. The toddlers’ “MUNU!” cries (if it was English, it’d probably be more like “OHMIGOD NOWAY GUYZ CHECK THIS OUT!”) alerted her of my arrival, and she peeked out from around the side of the house. We exchanged warm greetings, and I was relieved to see that, even within the context of the current situation, she continued to emanate the hope and radiance of a young person ready to make change happen.

She led me to the small corner room and over to a bundle of tiny blankets. Not empty blankets, I soon found, but a bundle hiding a tiny, beautiful infant. As I held the child in my arms, the girl told me that Blessing had been born roughly three months ago.

“Rohbet,” she said, “will I ever go back to school? I still think of school all the time, and I really need an education. I’m so sorry this all happened like this… I should have known better. But I’ve been thinking about it, and well, everyone is human. I am human. And humans make mistakes. We all make mistakes sometimes, some bigger than others.”

“This baby is not a mistake,” I adamantly assured her, handing the baby back to her young, motherly embrace.

“Oh no, Rohbet, I know that. She’s the opposite. That’s why her name is Blessing. She will grow up to do amazing things, I just know it. She’s here for a reason.”

The baby looked up at me, drooling slightly on the bracelet-gift I had just given her and giggling once in a while at the paleness of my skin or perhaps just the goofy smile on my face. She looked around the room with huge brown eyes, eagerly taking in the sights and sounds of the new, fresh world she’d been brought into.

Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

I did my best to reassure the girl, as the head of the program is currently looking for a referral to a vocational program that will allow her to get her feet back on the ground while still caring for a new baby. She is ready to adapt and do what is necessary to get back on track.

*

A few last dinners and late night, no-electricity goodbyes with some phenomenal friends who are really only a skype-call away, I was ready to go. But not before saying goodbye to the head of TCII, who wanted to make sure I thank “all your friends for their help!!” Thank you everyone for all your help!! Seriously. Done. With that, I marched past the guesthouse blaring the “NAAAAAZABENYAAAAA” intro to “Circle of Life” (I know you know what I’m talking about) and onto the crowded bus, more than ready to befriend my inevitable four-legged companion. How I’ve missed you.

I’m now back in Kampala, caught between the Limbo of the paradise-that-is-Gulu and the ever-looming Rwanda adventure before me. Caught in the chaos that is the Ugandan capital, I’ve roamed the streets and managed to get some blog material before heading out of this country.

Somehow, unbeknownst to me, to be honest, I managed to set up a last-minute meeting with the Ugandan Minister of Foreign Affairs. As in, I marched into the office on a Friday afternoon, waited two hours, and was offered a 20-minute “TALK AS FAST AS YOU CAN” slot with him in which I could ask a few questions about the national government’s conception of the traditional reconciliation mechanisms in the North.

AND, upon cautiously walking in and listening to this huge, suited man on the phone trying to rectify some pretty severe border issue with the Congo (to the west), I heard him speaking Luo, the language of the North. My in!! In between his hanging up the phone on one side of his desk and picking up one on the other side, I spilled out a “you know Luo?!!” to him in the language and tried to impress him. His otherwise poker-face expression lit up with just a hint of something I would call “emotion,” and he said “that’s nice” before dismissing my feeble attempt at dialogue. I’ll take it. That’s one “that’s nice” more than I started with.

This man seriously spoke faster English than any British person I’ve come across, and I even had trouble catching his every word. “Sotellmewhatyou’reherefor,” he spat. “Durr… I’m a student… how do you feel about... uhh…” Picture me stuttering, sitting in his opulent office at the very top of a Ugandan high-rise in my birks, rolled up cargo pants, and beaten up, dirtied “The Child Is Innocent” shirt. Yeah son. Suits suck. It went well, though, and I managed to extract some great insight from this intimidation-of-a-man before heading out, head spinning with my having met him in all his glory.

Leaving this meeting in a haze of “I’m actually doing something here” euphoria, I jumped on a bodaboda and found that the driver also spoke Luo – a rare find in this city! Backpack bouncing and arms flailing (it *really* doesn’t take much these days to do it for me), I started screaming incoherent “I love Gulu!”s at him against the rush of the wind. In all my excitement, however, I neglected to keep my rain jacket at a less-than-precarious distance from the wheels of the boda. Yup.

“OH MY GOD STOP THE BODA!” I screamed, listening to the sound of my jacket getting caught in the [axle? chain? someone needs to proofread these blog entries.] as we veered toward the side of the road and into relative safety. My bulky jacket was now entirely caught in the gears of the motorcycle, squeezed down to a quarter of its size and temporarily destroying the bike. The jacket, however, was the furthest thing from my mind. I had potentially just wrecked this man’s SOLE source of income, all with one stupid muzungu jacket. “I AM SO SORRY.” (Most of what I say here in Uganda is in caps-lock.) Naturally, I drew a crowd, and soon enough, there were about 8 Ugandans surrounding the bike, alternating between trying to console a fairly nonplussed me and dislodging the stupid jacket. Luckily, I had my third-grade paper scissors in my backpack (I’m not kidding).

Some money for repairs, a rusty blade someone found on the ground to help cut through the madness that was my jacket massacre, and thirty minutes later, the jacket was no more. We picked up the shreds of green and literally all of my dignity and tucked it all neatly into the boda-basket in front. You know, to make sure the whole world could see what had just happened. Boda, jacket, Uganda. Yup.

*

That’s a good enough story as any to end on, I suppose. Sitting in a backpackers hostel in Kampala, now 2 hours away from boarding that fateful Rwanda-bound bus, I’m trying to bring all of these experiences together in order to form some sort of cohesive “thanks for reading, hope you learned ____!” message. It’s harder than you’d think. I’ve had some pretty phenomenal experiences over here this summer; this country is truly beautiful, and I’m forever grateful for the opportunity to have met so many incredibly inspiring people.

I think the TCII girl really nailed it on the head. I’m struck by the idea of what it is to be human. Having met with people who have undergone unimaginable atrocities and who work each day to pick up the pieces and start their lives afresh, I am led to seek the similarities between myself and each of them. What is it to be human? Is it the confidence that everything will work out in the end? The universal resilience to deal with any tragedy that comes our way? The inevitability of our making mistakes and the courage to deal with those mistakes? The profound ties we have for one another as a species, leading us to live for one another, to die for one another? The love that drives us forward?

I’m not sure what it is exactly. Maybe a combination of all of it. Maybe – likely – something more. But when all’s said and done, this summer has instilled something very deep in me: the pride in being human. To be able to say I share something in common with the awe-inspiring people I’ve met. This common identity, what it is to be human, can help us connect to everyone, everywhere, and this gives me hope. Maybe it can give you hope, too.

This is likely goodbye for now, so before I jump onto a French speaking bus armed with my “je suis garcon” as promised, I want to thank you for following along with my travels this summer. Especially now, I firmly believe that sharing of meaningful experience is the best way to really live, to figure out the bigger questions, and to connect with other people. Hopefully you’ve found some meaning through this as well. If so, feel free to share. This is a collaborative effort. =D

Here’s to one last boda ride, one last glimpse of paradise.

Human,
Rob