Giving Up Martyrdom For Lent

I think I'm well-qualified to discuss the topic of martyrdom. First off, I was a bloody St Perpetua for Halloween a couple of years ago. But then, my qualifications racked up during the 2012 Tour of Light, whereon I did two or three jobs at once plus parenting 3 girls at night, adding up to duties about 25/7. I accomplished this by depriving myself of sleep, of course, as well as eliminating any other thing you might call personal time, such as bathroom breaks or reading magazines or looking in the mirror. I carried around 3 copies of the New Yorker (my favorite) for weeks and read about a page. And I had a dream one night that I was trying to breast-feed 9 babies at once. SO, sometime near the end of the tour it was Ash Wednesday and I didn't have time to go to church of course, but I decided to give up martyrdom for Lent.

Instructions for this spiritual practice:
1) Eat chocolate every day. And you have to like it. This means no semi-chocolate like Reeses or KitKat, but pure yummy chocolate. You can't eat it on the run, or while doing other things. Sit down for a whole thirty seconds and let a piece of chocolate melt on your tongue. (This practice would also apply to good strawberries, or ice cream, or anything else that physiologically cues your body "all is well" and gets you out of fight-or-flight mode).

2) Moisturizer every day. YES it takes a darn long time to take care of one's body. No excuses. Love your scratchy old elbows. Appreciate them. Long baths and washing your hair and taking time to actually cut your toenails also fit in this category.

3) Makeup every day. It feels like penitential ashes as I smudge it on. I hate it, it takes SO long, and besides who cares? Even if I'm not going out that day, though, I have to make myself look good. By skipping the saggy sweatshirts and the self-deprecatingly ripped jeans, I'm doing something against that sinful habit of self-neglect.

4) In true Lenten fasting tradition, you get to skip all these rules on Sunday and do whatever the heck you want to do, even if that means wearing PJs to church. Or not going to church, if that's what your soul really needs.

follow-up to the Ukiah performance

The students from Ukiah wrote us some of their reflections. My favorite: 

◦   I was at the high point of euphoria. They felt like both friends and family. I was so happy and proud. Someone in the audience kept saying they were having goosebumps during the performance. Awesome.

◦   They all danced with their heart. I connected with them through their performances. I was amazed that they still keep their traditions.

◦  I felt they really cherished what they have, so they really appreciated everything they learned. One girl was writing down every Chinese phrase we taught her while talking or walking. It seemed that the knowledge was precious to them. 

◦  I was really eager to see them. They were really happy to see us. Their performances were really lively. Their dance is gift for us. Their happiness is our happiness. I was happy we were able to give them something equal

◦  I thought it was cool. There is no difference between them and us. Their dance was really amazing. I want to learn the dance. I felt there is no distance (of strangers) between Ugandans and our students.

◦   We learned so much about how joyful and carefree their culture is, how full of life and positive. Before, we only learned about the depressing part, the suffering and loss and poverty. But it seemed like they could forget everything when they danced, and just be in the moment. We should learn from them to forget the negative past experiences and enjoy the present.

Update

I realize i have a gaping hole in my blog record. Update: I was in Uganda. Now I'm in America, and I have 20 Ugandans with me for a 7-week tour of the States. Pause for immense gratitude. This is a huge dream come true. I had so many sleepless nights while we planned it, and now that it's a reality... well, i'm still up too late planning, and still having those "working dreams" rehearsing tomorrow's plans in my mind, but mainly I'm just overwhelmingly happy that it is really real. For nearly 2 years now, every time I've flown I've walked through SFO airport imagining what it would look like to the new eyes of Ugandan children who have never flown before. Not a week ago, I walked through the same airport holding 20 passports, counting 20 heads, sending 20 through customs and immigration, counting 31 pieces of luggage, calling ahead to the bus driver and my friend Susan who met us on the other side. I was so unstressed and everything went so smoothly that I had to pinch myself again and again to be sure I was awake.
I'm sure the universe has somehow aligned in our favor. Everything feels like a miracle. We haven't lost a single person, passport, or piece of luggage. Another similar Ugandan organization (Watoto) was traveling on the same plane to London, and their kids were puking left and right while our group sailed sweetly through with only a little dehydration and some sore muscles. Yesterday we made an E.R. trip for stitches on a cut (from playing basketball) and they got us in and out in half an hour. If that isn't miraculous, I don't know what is. 

At the Ukiah performance (where it seemed the entire town came to see us) I asked one of the nuns what happened - did they publicize the performance widely? She said no, they had hardly announced it. She told me they believed that these people knew to come because they had a spiritual affinity with the Children of Uganda and the work we do. 

One of our Ugandan songs proclaims "I'll sing to the Lord, because God is watching over me." My theological training tells me to be wary of statements like "things are going well so God must be on our side" but at the same time, my gut tells me to trust it. Even though this tour is brought to you with a lot of help from our friends, by the seat of our pants and the skin of our teeth, even though we aren't sure where we'll stay next week, I am finally fully willing to trust and just to keep putting one dancing foot in front of the other.

Children of Uganda's first show

I write this as we travel home from Ukiah, a 2+ hour drive through wine country and rolling hills.
Ukiah? What's in Ukiah? (my first thoughts…)
What is in Ukiah, as it turns out, is an amazing Buddhist center (City of Ten Thousand Buddhas) including a K-12 day and boarding school, some university students, monks, nuns, organic farm, meditation center and restaurant. One of their high school students has been raising money for Children of Uganda, through Rotary club and other sources. So we decided to make a trip up to see them… one of the best decisions ever made!
We were enthusiastically greeted by a gaggle of uniformed high school girls, and soon introduced to a Ugandan Buddhist Monk who took the COU children on a lecture-tour of the center. He brought them into the Buddha hall and oriented them to the meanings of various statues and paintings, drawing comparisons to Christ very frequently, and with a casualness that surprised our children. They were also surprised to find out that some people were Christian Buddhists. One girl remarked - "in Uganda I could never go into a place like this, it would be seen as totally wrong. But here I can visit and learn about it with no problem." The children participated in meditation as well. We hope all of them have learned something about religious tolerance and even about respectful interfaith dialogue!

After lunch we set up for the performance, but soon we were invited to sit down in front row seats while THEY performed for US. We saw several different dances including the Lion dance and Dragon dance, and Taiwanese drumming as well. The audience of about 500 packed into the room, stood by the walls, sat on the floor, and made a lot of very appreciative noise. At some points it sounded more like a basketball game than a dance performance from the way they whooped and whistled. Children of Uganda performed after the intermission and I couldn't imagine a more supportive audience. At the end the COU kids were each given gift baskets, hand-written cards from kindergarteners (with greetings in Luganda!), and roses. By the time we loaded our things back onto the bus they'd laden us down with boxes of snacks, blankets, jackets, sweaters, and I don't even know what else. Their students came onto our bus for a final goodbye and I do believe I saw some tears as they exchanged hugs.

We're headed home now to our homestay families, most of whom have lamented how little time they get to spend with their guests. We've reconfigured the schedule to allow them another meal together on Thursday and a free day with no commitments but recreation on Saturday. This morning we left at 7 AM, no one's favorite time, but my host family's twin 10-year-olds stumbled sleepy-headed out to the breakfast table so they could get some extra time with their guests.

On Children of Uganda's 2006 tour we went to big professional theaters and stayed in hotels. I will admit that a theater *might* make us twice as much money as a school, and that when you stay in hotels you are subject to no one's lateness but your own. But in my personal opinion, that money couldn't possibly be worth as much as the bedheaded good-mornings and tearful good-byes.

Pictures and video to come soon!

Burials

Just a quick note to report some sadness. Yesterday I went with six of COU's office staff out to the Busoga region, past a town called Kamuli, nearly 3 hours transport in a private car, to attend a burial. Kamuli district is very poor; we passed roadside stands which in Mukono would be heavy laden with fruit, but here each person was selling two or three bunches of bananas only.
The woman who died was the mother of one of our COU employees, and although none of us knew her personally, it is traditional to accompany your friends to their family burial services. Hundreds of people were there, and it felt festive as they served food and made many speeches praising this woman's good long life (79 years old - ancient by Ugandan standards!). Piles of flowers covered the ornate coffin.
However today I just packed Shirah up to go to another burial, which will be much less festive. She got a call on my phone this morning that her baby cousin passed away at only 4 months. The funeral is actually in the same town Kamuli. I know it will be a sorrowful occasion. And why did the baby die? No one knows exactly but I'll venture it was directly caused by poverty - just too many diseases around, too little soap and clean water, too few doctors, too many challenges.
Please keep the grieving families in your prayers.

Uncle Fred

At Christmas I spent a while talking with Uncle Fred, who grew up in Daughters of Charity (COU's partner organization) believing that he was a total orphan. It wasn't until he was about to graduate from university that he met some people who encouraged him to find his family. Through personal connections and the use of a village loudspeaker, he eventually managed to reconnect with his aunt (Shirah's grandmother). The family had assumed he died in the war of the 1980s along with his parents. It was a joyous reunion of course. And as he began to re-integrate with his long lost family, he saw how many of his nieces and nephews were sitting at home without attending school. He decided to help Shirah and her sister (a small family, it's just them and their mother, as their father abandoned them a long time ago). Shirah was brought to COU and is now sponsored by my parents, and Uncle Fred personally sponsors Mercy. Their mother does whatever tailoring work she can, but she also struggles with poor health. It's hard to imagine how the family would have fared without Uncle Fred and the Daughters of Charity / Children of Uganda connection.

Christmas in the Country

Shirah, my "sister" (the sponsored child of my parents) took me to her grandmother's village for Christmas this year. The journey started at 7 AM and took us through exorbitantly overcharged taxi routes to a dirt road where we both clambered onto a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) and rode 10 km to arrive at their family home. I've been in the country before but this is "really really" in the country. Very few cars travel along that road, only the bodas and bicycles. There is no electricity, and I didn't even see any solar panels. Needless to say, no Christmas lights or lawn ornaments.

We celebrated Christmas morning with 3 hours in church. Comprehending only a tiny portion of the content of the service, I contented myself with singing English lyrics to the carols I knew, and contemplating the people around me. I've known that statistically, half the population of Uganda is under the age of 15, but here it was plain to see. Adults sat on benches, mostly well-dressed, but scores of messy children rustled noisily at our feet, unheeded and unminded. Tiny babies nursed from impossibly skinny mothers, or were passed from lap to lap. The pastor had to step over and around the children to get from pulpit to lectern and back. Even when a child (or two or more) was crying, the pastor simply preached louder. He had no microphone or amplification, but then again there were a lot of things the church didn't have yet -- a roof being one. This was the first Sunday in the new building, and the portion of the roof that hadn't been funded yet was covered by a tarp. We had an auction at the end of the service to try to complete the project.
Shirah's uncle introduced me to the congregation, near the end of the service. The deacon said "Clap for her! When else will we have a muzungu in this church?" I stood up and said Merry Christmas in Luganda and the place shrieked with happiness. Afterward everyone wanted their picture taken with me. I must have posed about a dozen times.


Back at the family home we had a traditional Ugandan meal featuring matooke and chicken. Their home is nice but sparsely furnished. I and two uncles were given stools to sit on and forks to use, while the other few adults and a dozen children sat on mats on the floor eating with their hands as is traditional. After eating we took all the mats outside and sat or sprawled in the shade of a tree while the teenagers did the washing up. We sat there much of the afternoon as neighbors came by to visit, eat cake, and catch up with the family members they hadn't seen in a long time.

Shirah's sister took me on a walk around the village. We greeted many an astonished child and some elderly women as well. "Thank you for coming to our village" was a refrain I heard often, and some of the villagers backed up their thanks with gifts. I came home with three large bags of just-picked peanuts, which we've been shelling for a few days now and plan to roast soon.

Back at Kiwanga that night, we had a teen-oriented Christmas party. Sodas and cake were the main refreshments, and camera flashes the main entertainment as people posed with their sodas, new clothes, and friends. I had brought a suitcase full of donated clothing which served as my Christmas presents, and these were the only presents I saw exchanged this year. I was happy to see some people wearing them at the Christmas party.

My sister Cassie & I used to blog together, back in the day (at http://tandcinuganda.livejournal.com), and she always had some profound closing remarks. In her absence, I invite you to insert profound remarks here by leaving a comment.
Merry Christmas!