When It Rains, It Pours

I mean this literally and figuratively. At night, I wake up to the pounding sound of rain pellets hitting my metal roof. The storms are wild. I have never heard such massive thunder or seen such extreme lightening. I am up for hours waiting for it to pass because no one would be able to sleep through the rain and thunder. One can hardly walk in the rain or the aftermath of it. The roads are muddy, slippery, and dangerous. Without sturdy shoes, you are bond to fall. And many people here do not wear shoes as they cannot afford them. It is like skating on muddy roads.

For the figuratively aspect, lets start by the power. I have dealt with a power outage in my dorm room (too many things plugged in) and an outage when a power line goes down. But these were for a few minutes or a few hours. In Lusaka, we had power outages, but the University of Zambia students would strike and on it would come. But here, I have been out of power for the past 11 days straight. And before that the power had been so sporadic that I can say the majority of my time here is power-free. It makes it extremely difficult to work, as much of the work is drafting workplans, action plans, emails, etc. This pass week we have spent many days at a “hotel” where they are equipped with a generator. Here, we were able to charge our computers and phones and we return to the technological world again. The power is suppose to be out for more time. I have heard that Arua can have up to 6 months without power.

Next, poverty. I have seen poverty in the states. I have witnessed the effects that it has on communities. But nothing that I have seen has compared to the poverty here. Now, the gap between the rich and the poor is extremely wide. The images I see are in town, in villages, and on the road. Children wearing rags for clothes and walking with no sandals through the dirt, garbage, and at times human waste. Women sit on the ground selling guavas, mangos, ground nuts, roasted cassava, chipate (like a fried tortilla, but better!). A majority of the houses are one- or two-room huts with outside pit latrines, which are shared with many people, and the only source of light being a candle or lantern (even when the city of Arua HAS power). Young children, women and men bathe in the small stream that flows by the golf course. Dishes and clothes are washed using this water as well.

And one last one for this blog: Sewage. I went to the Médecins Sans Frontières to look for more volunteer opportunities on the weekend. The MSF here is located in the Arua Hospital. While I was waiting for the program officer, an awful smell filled my nose. It was so close to me, I assumed I stepped in animal waste. However, upon closer inspection of my surroundings, I realized I was standing across from 5 pit latrines, each equipped with a smoke-stack look-a-like that was pouring out the fumes from the pits. It was unbearable. There was one gentleman sitting on the curb by me, and I wondered if he even noticed the smell. Or is it so common that the Ugandans are immune to the smell of human waste? What a sad, sad world we live in.


If the rains are so strong, and the pouring does not seem to stop, why do I return? Answer is simple….
The Beauty, the Power, and the Hope of People

With the strong rains come fields of emerald greens. The drive in northern Uganda in the West Nile Region is spectacular. Huts dot the field, women carry babies in chitenges on their backs while carrying two buckets of water in hand, and a basket of fruit on head, men ride bicycles while towing logs, charcoal, or metal sheets. Goats graze on the side of the road, many with full utters, small children herd a group of cattle across the road, and food stands are available for those who are hungry for sweet potatoes, fried bananas, boiled cassava (root), peanuts, or roasted maize. It makes any road trip worthwhile.

Closer to the town market, people sit in stands under this black covering selling household goods like silverware, table clothes, tea and food flasks, dishes, pots and pans, hardware items like nails, string, rope, screws, hammers, and clothing items from bras and underwear to an Adidas windjacket or Armani jeans. It is a Goodwill/Shopping Outlet in one area of town that one should be aware of thieves, the smell of sewage, and the sight of cattle’s hoofs and skinned goats. Every stand sells the same thing as the next. And yet, they survive. The conditions in which the Ugandan people live are nothing that we can imagine. Except when you are right here, “in” it. The amount of power that the Ugandan people, much like that of other African nations (Zambia, Malawi), is mind blowing.

The lessons that one can learn from just ONE person here are endless. The power of a human’s strength and courage is breathtaking, mind-boggling, and heartbreaking, all in one. The hope in just one child, one teenager, one single mother, or one elderly man is contagious. If people can live in these conditions I mentioned above, wake up each morning knowing that poverty, disease, and death are knocking at many doors, and face life’s toughest struggles every day, we have so much to gain and to learn from the global communities that house our brothers and sisters.

and for you picture lovers/addicts (myself included!): I will be adding pictures, when I have a faster internet connection... stay tuned!