Life on the Humanitarian Front Line
Trip Start
Jul 25, 2006
1
47
165
Trip End
Ongoing
Kampala,
Uganda
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
"kinda good you didn't make it up here (from my point of view). it really has been tough. just back from the doctor. 9.30pm. that's how tough the day has been, it took that long to get to the clinic today (not all with cops, afternoon with youth group and program prep), where i sat for an hour or so waiting in the candlelight, occasionally chatting to people, playing my part in caring for the toddlers running around. last thing i wanted to do, actually, interact, but i spent some of the quiet time musing on the fact that it's not really what you do when it's easy that counts the most, it's who you are when it's tough and you're struggling to keep your head above water. and that it's the people around you who help that to happen, whether you're willing to stay out there or not. the imran popped over from the mosque and greeted me by name (to be honest, i can't recollect where i've met him, but hey, he knows me). a man said the white girl can't have a stomach problem, they don't drink our water like that. the imran said of course this one can have a stomach problem, she moves with our people, she is always with them, this one is a field person, that is why we love her. when you feel so weak, those are the moments that get you through, unsolicited care and kindness. especially, in that moment, because it came from a muslim spiritual leader and i am a white christian.
and because lives here are intertwined in complex ways, the doctor and i talked about some other things we have on the side, from a meeting he was in today, about a library we want to create (still haven't figured out where to get the books, details details) and a plot of land we need for something else. then i asked if he operated on the intruder we had last night. he did. the guy was on the table from 8am to 1pm, the arrow head had ripped through his left kidney, shifted his spleen, and come to rest somewhere near his spine. still not known if he'll pull through. my western side says that's awful for him, and for me i can't believe i was involved in a guy getting shot with an arrow in my compound at 4am. part of me, that's been here a while, agrees with the police - why didn't you kill him? you should have finished him, he's a thief. part of me thinks stupid fucker - he knows security guards are armed. there's a traditional story about a man and a lion and a grasshopper where the moral is that you should not throw away your life for something small that you do. people who do that here don't get sympathy. and because lives are intertwined in complex ways, the intruder, it transpires, is the cultural equivalent of the brother of the driver and that raises all sorts of difficult questions, and raises a memory of the same driver receiving allegations that he was planning an ambush on one of our sudan vehicles last year (i voted for sacking him then and there), and none of that is easy to tangle with. and a person i thought was a friend, at the doctor's surgery, made an odd comment about going to see the boy at the hospital, the one of the arrow, and then said she didn't know him when i asked how she knew him and why she went to check on him. which raises more unpleasant questions.
the same town, in the same moment, holds you and cares for you and plots behind your back to steal from you and sometimes someone gets killed for that. and people die here so much, so many i know have died, that one more body buried in a blanket isn't much of a difference even if you do know something about how his guts got shredded this morning. people, connected in various ways, and some are innocent and some are not. some are genuine and some have their eyes half-open, looking for the way in and sometimes it's bloody hard to tell the difference and always the obstacle of suspicion and the guilt that produces because you want to believe the best and could somebody really do that? and you feel so many different things in reaction to these simultaneous events. short version: tough day. and i've got bacterial infections (plural) in my guts and a variety of species of worms and some kind of virus that is on the mend. never rains, as they say."
