Most of my emails have been light reading overall, the easy stuff, covering interesting cultural differences and quirky experiences, anecdotes to illustrate my life here in Uganda. That is one phrase I hear often at the dinner table when we get into political discussions or when someone is explaining something to me – “Here in Africa…” but then they catch themselves and say “or let me say, here in Uganda…” So I have been dancing around the difficult questions of power and money.

Here in Uganda the money seems to always be in the wrong place – corruption is rampant, most visibly by politicians. Maama has told me several stories that just make me so mad. One example is from her work with the women’s groups, like the Kyalugo HIV/AIDS group I wrote about a few emails back. She is a volunteer with these groups, and she keeps records about the members. One of the local council leaders asked her to compile a list of all the orphans the group members care for, including their ages and schools. She volunteered her time compiling all of this information, updating the records, walking back and forth to visit the groups since she doesn’t have money for transportation. She turned it in, and a little while later she heard that the district was awarded a big sum of money, earmarked for HIV/AIDS and vulnerable children. Did her groups see any of the money? No. She pretty sure the government people just pocketed it. It’s unbelievable.

Maama does so much work – for her community, her family, and, until 1994, she worked as a veterinarian assistant for the Ugandan government. She had her first (of 10) children in 1979. She has worried about feeding her children and paying school fees for 30 years, in addition to her volunteering and her work. She has worked SO HARD to do these things, no wonder she is tired now. Her second-born daughter and her son-in-law both died of HIV in early the early 2000s. Maama has taken care of Sseru, one of the two orphaned grandsons since then, with a few breaks when he stayed with Maama’s daughters’ families, and the other grandson is with Maama’s sister.

Last week we feared that Sseru had run away. Even though he has grown up with his grandmother with occasional stays with aunts, as an orphan he is very vulnerable to feeling unwanted and unloved. I read that 19% of children in Uganda are orphans, and it’s probably safe to say that the cause is overwhelmingly HIV/AIDS. I’m not sure if this means double orphans (both parents dead) or single orphans or both, but it is a sobering statistic any way. The paper discussed the “social crisis” this has caused, that “the traditional family and community systems have become overwhelmed and increasingly unable to support the realization of children’s rights and protection from abuse and exploitation.” Here in Uganda rich businessmen target orphans as a source of cheap labor. They lure them with some money, or the promise of food and clothes. Maama was afraid that if Sseru took such a job, he would continue his (mild) tendency to steal and they would catch him stealing and kill him.

Maama found out that Sseru had been chased away from school the day before because she still owed about 10,000 for school fees. Instead of coming home to tell Maama, he ran away to stay with friends. She feared he would take a cheap-paying job or just become a street kid. She stayed out most of the night, searching for him, and thankfully found him. He is now home safe.

Between taking care of her family and working with the community groups, she stays so busy, though she is always calm and optimistic. Her biggest question now is who will continue her work when she is no longer able to do it. Her dream is to start a counseling center on her land in Namaseenene, a place where vulnerable people – widows, HIV/AIDS victims, orphans – can come to seek counseling or just have a safe place to stay for a while. People already come to her to seek help and advice about abusive husbands. She asked me, “What will they do when I am dead?”

These problems of health and lack of money are draining. I am happy that Maama feels she can share these thoughts with me, but I catch myself thinking about my pending escape back to the riches of the US, where I will no longer hear people saying “if God wishes, I will find the money… Our money problems just have such a different scale. It’s draining to hear people’s worries, though I feel so selfish thinking so.

Lately I’ve also been feeling drained due to being stared at, being different. When I first arrived it was uncomfortable but I reasoned that yeah, I am new here, and I was probably staring at everyone that I met as much as they stared at me… but now that I’ve been here for a while I’m just tired of it.

I challenge myself to take the initiative to greet the person staring at me. After my greeting they realize that 1) they’re staring and 2) I’m a person who can see them staring. They usually greet me back, often with a look of surprise and a smile. Usually the greeting dissolves the tension between us, but I have also come across people who ignore my greeting or continue to glare. Such accusatory glares hurt, and I feel the negative energy building up in me. I catch myself beginning to assume that everyone I meet will look at me like “you’re just some rich muzungu who’s come here to ogle at the poverty of Africa.” I have to override my tendency to build up a defense, I resist glaring right back. I can easily see how people who are chronically discriminated against become violent, in fact I’m surprised that so many don’t.

Mostly I’m talking about walking through Ssaza on my way to or from work. People in Masaka Town are more accustomed to seeing bazungu, and, since it’s a pretty big city, it’s just easier to blend in. Ssaza is that awkward size between village (where you can really meet everyone) and city (where you can disappear in the masses). I partly blame myself for feeling so self-conscious and shy, which has limited the number of people I have interacted with in Ssaza. My excuse is that it’s exceedingly hard to want to approach people to say hello and visit their store when they are staring so much, but really it should have been me to break the ice since I am the strange one here.

Rereading that passage, the point I want to emphasize is how quickly negative energy builds up. The number of people who have responded to my greetings with a smile and a greeting in return FAR outnumber those who have continued to stare, and fewer still actually glare. However, the proportion of smiles to glares doesn’t correspond to the way I feel about the situation. Though generally I call myself an optimist, in this case I dwell on the negative. I realize now how vital it is to be mindful of how I interact with my fellow humans.

stephanie