Weakness and Greatness. Humility and Power. Poverty and Wealth. The reversals in Luke 18 are not unfamiliar to us as Luke’s readers, nor should they be. In fact, their familiarity should cause us to pause, listen, and take note– Luke is drilling something home.
This pericope is not unique to Luke. In fact, all three synoptic gospels contain an account of Jesus blessing the children and telling a rich man to give away everything he owns. But Luke’s placement is unique, following right after the reversal parables in 1-14. According to Green, the lessons of “value-transposition” in the first half of the chapter are made alive in the second half. Jesus embodies and proclaims his parables by prioritizing the humble children over the more important members of his audience, particularly the rich ruler ‘waiting in the wings’.
The pericope opens with people bringing “even infants” to Jesus for healing and blessing. When the disciples try to put a stop to this, Jesus declares that the kingdom of God belongs to these children, that whoever does not receive the kingdom as a little child will never enter it.” Our modern, romantic notion of children may hinder our ability to recognize the significance of Jesus’ words. In ancient Greco-Roman culture, children were valued for their future utility but had very little intrinsic value as human beings. Infants especially were vulnerable to the widespread practice of infanticide and child abandonment (Green). Is Jesus calling us to become like these children, economically useless and socially vulnerable?
The rich ruler presents a stark contrast to the infants Jesus welcomes, thus hinting that a Lukan reversal is at work. In response to Jesus’ teaching up to this point, the rich ruler asks Jesus what he himself must do to inherit eternal life. This scene echoes that of Jesus and the lawyer in 10:25. But Luke gives us no indication that this ruler is trying to undermine Jesus — his motivates seem pure, his interest genuine. According to the text, he has kept the commandments since he was young, particularly those having to do with “loving thy neighbor as thyself.” But Jesus tells him that there is one thing he is lacking. Jesus says to him, “sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
How does the ruler respond? With deep sorrow. For the ruler, the call to discipleship is met, not with repentance and eager abandonment as modeled by Peter and the other disciples, but with great sadness and disillusionment. Many commentators interpret the rich ruler’s sadness as his refusal or inability to follow Jesus. But unlike the other synoptic gospels, Luke actually doesn’t tell us the end of the story. We are left wondering whether the ruler chose the costly path of discipleship or returned to the security of his possessions.
We must also consider that sadness and disillusionment may have a place in the Christian life of discipleship, especially for those who have something to lose. Could the ‘good news’ to the poor sound a bit like ‘bad news’ to the rich, as the woes in the Sermon on the Plain suggest? As Augustine wrote, “It is one thing not to wish to hoard what one does not have. It is another thing to scatter what has been accumulated. The former is like refusing food; the latter, like cutting off a limb.”Jesus commiserates with the ruler, saying “How hard it is for those with wealth to enter the kingdom of God.” It is as challenging, as impossible as a camel passing through the eye of a needle. But there is a word of hope in the text: “What is impossible for man is possible with God.” Though it will take divine intervention, the ruler may still one day enter into God’s kingdom.
Questions to consider:
- What is the “one thing” the ruler is lacking? Is it obedience? Repentance? Trust? Love of neighbor?
- Are Christians called to welcome children, or become weak, vulnerable and possession-less like children?
- For Luke, are radical acts of hospitality towards the marginalized, financial divestiture and redistribution of one’s possessions on behalf of the poor required of all who wish to follow Jesus, or just those for whom wealth is a “problem”?
Last week, international field ed folks from Uganda and South Africa shared some reflections in chapel. Here is mine:
Before this summer, I knew very little about hospice, nor did I have any real, personal experience with death and loss. In fact, until recently, I had never even been to a funeral. So, of course, when asked to help pioneer an internship at Hospice Africa in Uganda, I was a bit terrified. Living in Uganda sounded like the easy part. But visiting with and caring for the terminally ill? Definitely a foreign experience.
Hospice Africa has over 80 hard working staff. Over the past 15 years, they have trained thousands of health care workers, community volunteers and religious leaders in palliative care. They visit people at their homes most days of the week and also host a day care in which patients come to the HA compound to share a meal.
It was humbling to be there, mainly because I had nothing to offer – no experience, no technique. My hands were empty. Most westerners come to places like Uganda expecting to do, build, create, establish, make their mark. But this past summer, I spent a fair amount of time observing and absorbing, helping wherever possible and trying not to get in the way.
Once a week, I accompanied the staff social worker on some of her visits to more impoverished patients. Often, we were in the slums of Kampala, and some the houses we visited were concrete blocks, as small as the average walk-in closet. One woman stayed in a tiny room with 4 of her children on one bed. I have never witnessed places so unlivable. On top of her desperate poverty, this woman and several of her children were HIV positive. Sick and poor. Poor and sick.
In America, we hide the sick and economically powerless away because their failing bodies and unfortunate lives do too much to remind us of our own mortality. As people living in nation so obsessed with success and power, it’s often hard to believe that the weak and vulnerable have something to teach us, something that Dr Amy Laura Hall describes as ‘embodied discipleship.’ This discipleship involves caring for real bodies, bandaging real wounds, seeing real scars and imperfections on the human body.
During one hospice visitation, I met a man with a large wound on his leg. Both limbs were extremely swollen and he said he was in pain. When he pulled up his pant leg, my first instinct was to look away, as we are apt to do out of respect (or, more realistically, out of fear and revulsion). But this man, Richard, seemed to take comfort in our presence there with him, knowing that he could reveal his broken body to us without judgment or disgust on our part.
The nurses and doctors at Hospice Africa witness the broken bodies of their patients on a daily basis. But this task is not just for medical workers or caretakers. Witnessing the wounds of others is in and of itself a very Christian task. When the disciples saw and touched the wounds of Christ in the Upper Room, they were transformed. In the same way, when we witness the wounds of others, we encounter not only their pain and brokenness, but our own. And out of that witness comes compassion, which literally means co-suffering.
In no way am I trying to idealize suffering, nor do I want to minimize the need for good medical care. But in light of modern medicine and ever-growing medical technology in the West, we cannot forget the cruciform Christ, the body BROKEN for us on the cross. As Christians, we believe that Christ has the power to heal, but we must also recognize that Jesus didn’t cure everyone. In the same way, hospice care does not seek to cure patients but to lovingly care for them in their last days. Just as they experience the pain of mortality in their bodies, so Christ bared that pain in his own body. Hospice care can help us remember that through Christ’s death on the cross, his broken body has itself become a sign of God’s love for the world.
So, like most Americans, I’ve been reluctant to change my eating habits. As an indebted graduate student with no current (or impending) marketable skills, money isn’t exactly growing on trees. With this in mind, I like to be as flexible as possible when it comes to what I eat. My schedule is erratic and I take free food when and where I can get it (including some Dominos cheese pizza from a Women’s Center meeting yesterday…yum.) The idea of having voluntary food “preferences” or restrictions just rubs me the wrong way, especially since a posture of flexibility and adaptability is, in my opinion, just plain easier!
All that being said, Eric Shlosser has done it to me again. I became a vegetarian for about year in college after reading his book, Fast Food Nation. The description of the dangers of the meat packing industry, the squalid torture chambers that are factory farms, and the environmental impact of our meat consumption in America literally made me lose my appetite for meat, at least for twelve months. (According to Slate, the livestock industry not only uses more land than any other human activity. It’s also one of the largest contributors to water pollution and a bigger source of greenhouse-gas emissions than all the world’s trains, planes, and automobiles combined. Crazy!)
After watching his new movie, Food Inc, I think I’m back on the proverbial horse (or should I saw cow?) with regards to vegetarianism, or at least, cutting back on meat. Every year, 10 billion animals are raised and killed for American consumption. Cutting back our meat-eating by just 10 percent could have a major impact, including “saving” 1 billion animals from the slaughterhouse each year, dramatically reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions caused by livestock farming, and even cutting our risk for cancer and heart disease in half.
That’s good news for all of us who 1) love pork barbeque and 2) know the food industry needs changing. Even just cutting back can make a big difference. Though I’m not ready to recommit to the vegetarian lifestyle, I’m all for weaning myself off (as is the Bixler, Florer-Bixler clan). And there are a lot of creative ways to do this:
- Cut out red meat. Beef, lamb, goat and bison are the most resource-intensive meats to raise and have the biggest (and most devastating) environmental impact. If we reduced our red meat consumption by one-quarter, the reduction in greenhouse gases would be the same as shifting to a 100 percent locally sourced diet.
- Buy meat from a local farm. Cuts down on carbon emissions, gives greater assurance of humane and sanitary conditions for the animals and supports local business, all while shortening the supply chain and bringing you closer to the food you eat. Can’t go wrong. You can search for meat-supplying farms and co-ops in your zipcode with the Eat Well Guide.
- Have meatless Fridays. Or Mondays. Whenever. Try temporary vegetarianism one or more days out of the week. Break out the Moosewood Cookbook for some filling (and delicious) veggie meals. Have meatless breakfasts. Or lunches. Switch to veggie sausage or cheese pizza. According to Michael Pollan, if Americans went meatless one night a week, it would be equivalent to taking “30 to 40 million cars off the road for a year.”
- Stop cooking meat at home. This is pretty much how I roll. I don’t buy meat and, therefore, don’t cook it. Saves money and saves time. If you really want to satisfy a meat craving, search for a local, organic, sustainable restaurant on the Eat Well Guide (see link above).
- Eat meat like you eat cake: rarely and only on special occasions. For centuries and for many people on the earth today, meat is a delicacy, not a staple. Treat it as such. Eating meat 7 days a week, let alone 2 or 3 times a day, is beyond excessive. The FDA recommends 1 serving of protein a day for the average adult (male or female), which means 2 eggs OR 1/2 cup beans OR 100 gm of meat (about the size of a deck of cards). When is the last time a restaurant has served you a steak the size of a card deck?
- Remember: Kosher doesn’t count.
My dad and I went to the big, fat, totally awesome used bookstore in Manassas this week (a Bill Bixler ritual) and I found a book called Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live. There are some good dad-friendly contributors, like Christine Pohl and Brian McLaren, so I handed it off to him and he said he would read it. This is actually one of many books on Suburban Christianity published recently. Understandably, it’s a hot topic, especially as Evangelicalism has begun a social justice makeover. Al Hsu, author of The Suburban Christian, has a blog dedicated to the subject, as does Sub*Text.
I appreciate that these conversations are happening, often thoughtfully and imaginatively from what I’ve read. Christians live in the suburbs and we must learn how to be disciples wherever we live. But I worry about the hint of quietism that is lurking under the surface of these Suburban Christianity arguments. Yes, Christians live in the suburbs, but if we are truly resident aliens, we sure as hell shouldn’t feel at home there.
My friend Derek is currently writing a book that makes a connection between Baudrillard’s simulacrum and suburbia, and calls Christians to recover and prioritize “the real” over the simulated, Truman Show fantasy land of suburban America. I must say, I have a lot of sympathy for Derek’s argument. There are too many Christian churches (white, middle to upper class, highly educated benefactors of the status quo) languishing in the suburbs, completely isolated from their needy neighbors, even the needy in their congregation. They are turned in on themselves, obsessed with doctrinal (and administrative) minutia and meetings and capital campaigns to build new, million-dollar education wings. I think Derek would argue that suburban culture necessarily creates such isolation and self-focus. It’s the nature of what suburbia is and how suburbia formed historically — as safe, white enclaves for the ‘ideal American family.’ Perhaps even the ideal Christian family.
But here is the kicker – MOST churches in America are suburban churches. More than 50% of Americans live IN the suburbs. Every single church I’ve gone to in my short life has been white, upperclass, suburban. Furthermore, I AM white, upperclass, suburban! I can moan and complain and demonize suburban America as much as I want, but to do so feels a bit like cutting off my own arm (well, maybe more like ripping off my sneakers). I am imbedded in that world. I know that world. And I can’t really escape that world, especially as a Duke Divinity School in Durham, NC. Sigh.
I responded to an article Derek posted on Duke Div’s online journal, The Confessio (he has since taken it down, probably for copyright reasons). I was actually responding to another comment from a fellow student who was trying to deal with the same tension. The student was worried that anti-suburban rants have become sort of “hip” in Christian subcultures, though those hip Christians still live out their lives, sip their lattes, and read their emergent theological books in the very neighborhoods they claim to despise. The student argued that we, as suburban Christians, must go through a process of conversion before we can ever hope to fellowship with those on the margins. Essentially, you can take the privileged white girl out of the suburbs, but you can never take the suburbs out of the privileged white girl… without true conversion.
My response centered around the issue of power as something both inexcusable and inescapable. Such tension often causes us highly-educated, well-meaning (blogging) Christians to feel paralyzed in our response to poverty. Yes, I have the power to move out of the suburbs and into the ghetto, but isn’t that move in and of itself is an act of violence against the powerless who are trapped in poverty? Yes, I can give away all my belongings, but my social capital will always be present, a safety net that will inevitably catch me before I end up on the streets.
Perhaps the bigger danger is not our own power but our rationalization of and submission to that power. It is just as much a sin to wield this power for evil as it is to allow this power to handicap our ability to follow Jesus. Yes, we have the power of choice. But what choices are we, Christians marked as Christ’s own in baptism, called to make? I do believe a part of our conversion or “revolution of the heart” is recognizing our power of choice. But we cannot stop here. We must move beyond this by acknowledging that it is God, not us, who has the ultimate power over this earth and that God calls each of us, poor or rich, to care for one another.
The first step to relinquishing our power is to kneel at the foot of the Cross, where the king of the universe submitted himself to a humiliating death. Christ was rich, and became poor for our sakes. Christ chose to leave his throne so he could wash our feet. The Incarnation has rendered the powerful powerless, and the last have become first. Therefore, we have been freed to serve the least of these with the understanding that we are serving Jesus. And if we are called to follow him, we must follow him to those uncomfortable places where human pain and despair are laid bare, at this risk of our own bodily discomfort and at the risk of coming face to face with our own complicity in the suffering of others.
Barbara Brown Taylor, in her sermon, The Silence of God, writes that God is not interested in upholding our illusions, whether it be our illusions of power, our illusions of suburban comfort, and the like. Instead, God is interested in “the demolition of our illusions: that we can hold ourselves up from one another, that we are not related to one another, that some people are simply destined to be winners and others to be losers and that there is nothing to be done about it, except perhaps to build some walls and install some security systems and relocate some neighborhoods in order to keep the one from spilling over into the other.”
Taylor goes on to confess that she was guilty of this relocation , moving from Atlanta “where bullets flew and babies’ stomachs growled and old people froze to death in their beds because they could not pay their utility bills,” to a small town in North Georgia. But even there, away from the big city, Taylor witnessed poverty – immigrant children playing in drainage ditches, Laotian women working in a meat processing plant, the elderly in the grocery store with little food in their carts, deciding between beans and cereal for dinner. She writes, “I had an illusion that the country would be different, but God disillusioned me. Hiding ourselves from our kin is not a city issue or a rural issue but a human issue.”
Perhaps we are getting too hung up on the suburbs and not getting to the kernel of the issue, which is this: as human beings, particularly as rich, privileged seminary students, we will do whatever it takes to avert our eyes from the needy and vulnerable. And we do this at risk of our own damnation, for we cannot ignore the needy without ignoring God. But God has given us another way. As Taylor states, “We can surrender our illusions of separateness, of safety and superiority. We can leave our various sanctuaries and seek God where God may be found, gathering in the streets…to figure out how to untie the fancy knots of injustice and how to take the yokes of oppression apart…Above all, we can learn to claim our kin, asking them what their names are, telling them our own, and refusing to hide from them anymore.”
What choices can we make, particularly regarding our residential choices, that will help us “claim our kin”? What residential communities (rural, suburban, exurban, city, you name it!) build walls between us and the poor and powerless? Which communities allow us to no longer hide from the beggars and the addicts and the “least of these”? If poverty is everywhere, it’s also in suburban America. And if poverty is in suburbia, it means Jesus is there, too, even if he is sometimes hard to see. If we really want to be the church in suburbia, we must first find Jesus – in the group home two doors down, in the prison three blocks over, in the battered women’s shelter down the street, in the soup kitchen on Main, in the hospital waiting room at Duke Medical Center, in the elderly neighbor’s house whose heating was cut off two weeks ago. And then we must work hard to introduce Jesus to the rest of the neighborhood. This is the godly work of disillusionment. As Christians, we are called to abolish the simulacrum of prosperity and comfort around us and show people Jesus, even in neighborhoods that would call the cops on Jesus for sleeping on their sidewalks (Luke 9:58) or eating scraps from their trash (Luke 6:1-5).
August 8th, I returned to America from my three-month stint in Uganda.
August 11, the Bixler crew (Mom, Dad, Melissa, Jacob, and Tennyson) and I flew off to Ireland.
August 21, we arrive home to DC via an emergency stop in New York where we sat on the tarmac for 4 hours (thunderstorms).
August 23, I drive down to Durham.
August 24th, classes for Fall Semester 2009 commence!
It’s been a whirlwind of transition with little time for reflection and contemplation in between. It’s pleasant to be back at Duke, taking interesting classes, reading formative texts, enjoying time with friends. But I’ve had little opportunity to process my experience in Uganda this summer. As with any major experience, good or bad, I never know how to remain faithful to the things I learned, the people I met. Tommy, who was also in Uganda this summer, and I have had good conversations about this. And I have many other friends who have asked good questions and encouraged me to reflect on my experience with them. But the world spins madly on, and with each new day comes one day further removed from my time in Uganda. Such is life. But I’d like to think there is a way to bridge the gap.
That “bridge” is something of which I am pursuit this semester. And, frankly, I hope it’s something I pursue for the rest of my life, learning ways to piece together the experiences of life into a cohesive, meaningful whole. This is the ENFP in me speaking. “How does my summer experience fit into the larger picture? Where will these lead me?” I pray I remain faithfully attentive to the way God is speaking in my life. It’s amazing how education, even (or especially?) seminary education can plug one’s ears, or at least distract one’s attention, from the voice of God.
In the words of Will Willimon, “”The seminary may self-flatteringly think of itself as the vanguard of the thought of the church when in reality it is an agent for the preservation of the church’s boring status quo.” Heaven forbid! Heaven forbid.
Fortunately, though, I do feel that the majority of my classes this semester are not, in fact, preserving the status quo, even if they are occurring in the hallowed halls of the Duke Academy. I’m especially enjoying Dr Kavin Rowe’s Luke exegesis class. It’s hard to read Luke well and also support the status quo. I’ve appreciated Dr Rowe’s unwillingness to let us, his students, talk around the difficult passages, such as “Blessed are the poor. Cursed are the rich.” I’m also blessed always by Joseph’s comments regarding the Lukan text. Joseph is a Sudanese Anglican ThM student who is taking the class. His presence there is, in a sense, helping me (and all of us) to “bridge the gap.”
I returned home from Uganda on the 7th of August, after traveling with a group from the Divinity School on the 2009 Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope for about 2 weeks. Interestingly, it’s not so strange to be home, though I think hanging out with Americans for the last few weeks has cushioned the blow. My reentry back into the US has felt very subtle and easy, unlike last time. Hot showers for the majority of the summer helps, as did living in Bling-bling-ville, known as Entebbe. And being able to cook most of my own food, etc, not to mention seeing Harry Potter in Kampala a few weeks back. But there are some things I am adjusting to:
1) Drinking water out of the tap – This is a serious no-no in Uganda (and something that even Ugandans try to avoid, if they can). Drinking out of the tap equals cholera, diphtheria, typhoid, and a host of other lovely diseases that we’ve since eradicated in the States. Every drop of water I drank this summer was either boiled on our gas range or bought bottled and sealed. It always blows my mind when I return to the West, and the States in particular, where virtually every tap provides every household with clean, drinkable water (certain places like urban DC and very rural US excluded). This is astonishing to me.
2) Six-lane, pot-hole-free highways, and driving in general - I spent most of the summer riding in packed matatu (mini-van) taxis careening down pot-holed roads densely packed with pedestrians and street vendors selling anything and everything. Oh, and we were also driving on the left side. Not only that, Ugandan drivers are very into overtaking, even if it means passing into the opposite lane with only a few feet of space to pass before an oncoming truck. It’s scary as hell and I had to surrender myself to Ugandan fatalism every time I got on the road. My parents drove me from Durham to DC two days ago and my heart-rate accelerated every time my father sped up or hit the breaks.
3) VEGETABLES!! – Ah, back in the land (and seasons) of vegetables. Don’t get me wrong -Uganda is extremely fertile and grows a variety of produce, but culturally, vegetables have not quite made into the cuisine like they have here in the States. For one thing, salad is considered rabbit (or poor people) food to most Ugandans, and serving anything cold or uncooked is seen as both unhospitable (“What, you didn’t have time to cook for your guest?”) and unsanitary (hot food = dead baceteria). So, most of my vegetable intake this summer consisted of potatos (which don’t count), the occassional boild carrot or tomato in a sauce, some bitter greens, or cabbage (usually boiled, as well). Needless to say, the first thing I craved when I got off the plane was a big, leafy salad!
4) The Washington DC summer heat – Oye it’s hot here! I felt pretty spoiled by the idylic temperatures of central Uganda. Hard to believe that Uganda is not nearly as hot as the States during the summer, but it’s true. Uganda’s high elevation and proximity to Lake Victoria (I lived on it’s northern shores this summer) makes it feel a lot more like southern California in the spring than the Sahara Desert. Think 76 degrees, 0 humidity, cool breezes, and brilliant blue skies dotted with clouds …. and that’s Uganda. No need for air-conditioning and all the houses and buildings have windows without glass panes. Here, on the other hand, it’s way too hot. Today is a record setting 100 degrees in DC!
5) Extremely high prices – This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise I guess. About 2,000 Ugandan shillings equals 1 US dollar. And it was a rare occasion to spend more than 20,000 (or $10) per week. The average American candy bar costs a bit more than the average Ugandan makes in an entire (usually back-breaking) work day. I’m trying not to convert all the prices I see into shillings, but it’s proving difficult!
6) Not sticking out like a sore thumb – Unlike my African American and Puerto Rican friends on Pilgrimage who finally enjoyed the feeling of “fitting in” in Uganda, I was gawked at the entire summer by pretty much everyone. I also had people reminding me most of the summer that I was, in fact, a white person (“Mzungu! How are you?”). So, being back in majority-mzungu US, it’s strange to walk down the street without a single stare. Actually, America’s hush-hush nature regards to race and ethnicity (thanks to color-blind politics?) feels a bit…dishonest. We are a multi-ethnic nation, and yet we find “pointing out” race especially offensive (and often for good reasons, giving our diplorable racial hisotry). But as Dr Holcomb always use to say, to be “blind to color” is essentially offensive — I don’t “see” what I don’t want to see (i.e., a nation of people with different skin tones).
That’s all for now! I take off for family vacation (holiday) in Ireland on Wednesday and return on the 21st, two days before school starts! Ack! More later….
Heather
I had an epic travel experience yesterday that involved 4 modes of transportation. Here’s the background of the story: I went to visit Lizzie at her placement way out in the bush (in Mwererwe, near Matuga, which is north of Kampala and on the way to Katikamu). I took a taxi from Entebbe to Kampala and then boarded a taxi to Matuga at the New Park. Then I got off at Matuga and took a boda boda 45 minutes along a dirt road to Mwererwe, to the secondary school where Lizzie teaches. She is pretty much far away from everything and it was really fun to be there. Really beautiful. We made chocolate chip cookies on the stove through a double broiler method. They came out great!
Okay, so here is where the epic 4-part transportation story begins: I know Katikamu is only a few kilometers up the road from Matuga, and I am trying to get to Katikamu by 9:30am for mass. So, we awake at 8 and walk up the dirt road from her school to a larger dirt road (we walked for about 20 minutes) in order to catch a boda. Well, as I said, we are pretty far out there, so bodas are pretty rare. So we stand and stand and wait for one to come by. They are doing a lot of construction on the road, so we see a flatbed truck hauling cement and we have it down. “You going to matuga?” He says yes, so we pile in the front and slowly make our way down the road (maybe 8 kilometers? 10?) to the main town. Right before we get to town, though, a police officer has set up a “tax station” (aka, a corruption station) and tries to get us to pay him so we can pass. I am feeling particularly fiesty this day (which came in handy later) and I refuse multiple times untell he lets us pass. We get to matuga and I stand on the side of the road waiting for some time for a north-bound taxi to come by.
Me and another Matuga passenger finally board one that’s especially empty. We drive up the road to Bombo, only a few km from Katikamu at this point, and they let a man on with a red hat. The man says something to the conductor in Luganda and the conductor turns to me and says, “This man says we can pick up some passengers down this road here.” So I nod, and we turn down a dirt road. We drive for a bit and there are no passengers in sight. Things become a little tense in the car as my fellow passengers start entreating the man in the red hat about the passengers. He continues to point down the road. We drive and drive deeper into the bush and farther from the main road and no passengers appear. Now, the conductor and the driver are shouting and the passenger next to me is very angry, waving his hand and yelling at the conductor for making him “late for his program.” The road is getting worse, so we are bouncing all over the place and I am imagining us being stranded in the bush with a flat tire for the next three days.
Finally, after 40 minutes of this (and lots of yelling), we arrive at a small settlement where the man in the red hat gets out. There are few children milling around, but no passengers. The conductor and him exchange some angry words and then the taxi begans to pull away, leaving the red hat man behind in the dust. At this point, I am yelling at the conductor, telling him I will not pay for this ride and I am very angry. He assures me we are headed back. Well…though I can’t seem to get a straight English word from anyone in the taxi, I think what happened is the red hat man had scammed the taxi into giving him a ride down to his village. There WERE no passengers to pick up. He just didnt want to walk all that way. Roar!!! So, we finally make it to Wobulenzi by 11:00 and I get off the taxi without paying a cent. “Sister, 2,000!” says the conductor. “I’m not paying,” I say, and walk away. Woah! I told Ugandans this story and they were shocked. The conductor sulked and got back on the taxi. I then got on a boda after haggling the price for 5 minutes “No! I will ONLY pay 700!!” and made my way to Katikamu in once piece. So, a trek that should have cost me nearly 7,000 shillings (or $3.50) only cost me about 0.30 cents!
So, estimated travel time based on kilometers: 1 hour. Actual travel time: 3.5 hours. That being said, I could have traveled to Katikamu all the way from Entebbe in the same amount of time it took me to travel just a short distance! Ack!
After hearing one too many people mix these up, I’ve decided to give you all a small lesson, free of charge. This is very important, particularly for those of you coming to Uganda on the Pilgrimage of Pain & Hope, or any other time in your life. Ready? Okay…
*Uganda is a country, about the size of the UK, located on Lake Victoria and bordering such countries as Sudan, the DRC, and Rwanda (and maybe Ethiopia, if you look really closely on a map). There are over 60 different ethnic groups (divided by tribe and then subclans or ‘totems’) in Uganda.
*Of these tribes is the Baganda tribe, one of the largest and wealthier people groups in Uganda. They used to be ruled by a king (or kabaka) who were aligned with colonial British powers back in the day. The British used the kabakas to rule the people of Uganda. Therefore, the Baganda are the powerful and elite (according to the stereotypes).
*The land (or kingdom) that the Baganda people inhabit is known as Buganda (notice the subtle move from ‘u’ to ‘a’). Buganda is in the central region of Uganda, right along Lake Victoria. Kampala and Entebbe are both located in the “kingdom” of Buganda (as opposed to the Kingdom of Toro, the Kingdom of Bunyoro, the Kingdom of Ankole, etc).
*Luganda is the language of the Baganda people, and one of more than 60 different languages in all of Uganda! Luganda is known primarily in the land of Buganda. If you travel several kilometers away outside of the Buganda region, you will find people who speak a completely different language and do not understand you. Therefore, though Luganda is prominent, it is not universal. Easterns, Northerns, and Westerns who travel to Kampala are just as clueless about Luganda as Americans. The universal language of Uganda is, therefore, English. (Swahili, contrary to popular belief, is not widely known. It is the language of the military, in case Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya need to align their military powers. But your average Uganda will not Jambo from Dumbo.)
*The cultural customs of the Buganda people is known as Kiganda. For instance, Baganda women perform a certain Kiganda dance that involves a lot of hip movement, almost like Hawaiian hula dancers, but faster. There is also a specific Kiganda cloth that they tie around their waists when performing this dance. (Kiganda is the adjective!)
*The term for one member of the Buganda tribe is Muganda. When I greet someone in Luganda, they often laugh and respond by saying, “Now, you are a Muganda!” They also say this when I kneel on the floor, sitting on my knees. This is a typical Kiganda way of sitting.
*So, to wrap up: The Kiganda customs are those of the Baganda, the people of Buganda, who speak Luganda, in the country of Uganda.
This will be a short post, as I have to pee REALLY bad and am a few miles from home, so….long walk ahead! Maybe I’ll take a boda boda.
Anyway, wanted to report a wonderfully Ugandan experience I had on Saturday with Tommy (Grimm). He and George were down visiting for the 4th of July (this deserves a whole other blog post, really) and on Saturday morning, Tommy and I left early to visit l’Arche. We got on a taxi towards Busega, but it stopped about 2 kilometers short of our destination, so the two of us crammed on a motorcycle taxi (boda boda) and proceeded to “throw caution to the wind” as we wizzed in and out of cars in Kampala. Now, this is a scary experience, and I think Tommy and I were praying the whole time that we wouldn’t lose a limb. The prayers ‘worked’ fortunately. Anyway, after telling the driver “mpola mpola” (slow down!) several times, we made it to l’Arche, where we proceeded to wash tomatoes and eggplants just bought at the market. We hung out with some of the core people, but many were away because of the weekend.
Then, we stood on the side of the road for a while and after being thoroughly coated in exhaust fumes, we found a taxi going to Kampala center. Well, we got on and made our way through pretty heavy traffic to the new taxi park, aiming to find this hideaway Ethiopian place we heard about from peace corps friends (more on this in a second). Well, as I am sliding out of the taxi, by trousers get caught on something and rip a nice, inch hole near my back pocket, thereby sharing my white, round bottom with the Ugandan masses waiting for a taxi. Amazing. Tommy walks closely behind and I wrap a shirt around my waste, and proceed to laugh for a while at the hilarity of the situation. Then we pass some street vendors with racks and racks and racks of clothing. I decide to buy a skirt (and barter it down) but the guy won’t budge. So, I hand over 15,000 shillings (or 7 USD) and decide I will put it on at the Ethiopian place.
Well, we wander around and around the busiest part of Kampala (there is literally no room on the sidewalk to move, except with the masses) trying to find a small sign that says Atlanta Guest House II. We search and ask and can’t find it, but then I have a burst of insight and we stumble upon it. We go down a dark corridor, which opens up into a central courtyard sort of thing, with people cooking and milling about and washing their clothes, and apartments and rooms on all four sides going up (this is where people in Kampala city limits live, just like in NYC or any other large city). I go up to someone and say “Ethiopian?” and she proceeds to show us the way, past men smoking sheesha and other people eating their lunches on their laps. We climb some stairs set on the side of a wall, like a fire escape, and then go down another corridor, where we went into a living room with several tables and couches and some posters of Ethiopia on the wall. Then a beautiful Ethiopian woman welcomes us and asks us what we want to eat, so we sit on her couch and order Fantas and whatever she has cooking. It’s just Tommy and I in her living room, but she doesn’t seem weirded out. She must have enough business that this is normal. So, anyway, about 10 minutes later she brings out two gigantic injera (flat bread) and some delish chicken and sauch, potatos in butter, and some of the best goat meat I’ve had. We ate ourselves silly and then finished off with some coffee. Oh, and before the meal I went into her room, sat on her bed, and changed into my new skirt! Anyway, the total cost of the meal, for both Tommy and myself, drinks included, was $5.00.
Welp! Time is ticking! Let me just say I am beginning to feel very at home, even in crazy Kampala. Bravery increases by the day, as does my Luganda. I now know how to say “you have no manners” and “don’t touch me” which really come in handy!
More on the rest of our 4th of July experience later!
