just some paper writings i turned in to Dr. Mpagi today. ponderings and thoughts:
Social activists and economists have defined poverty in various ways. Absolute poverty, including an apparent eight million deaths per year, entails struggling to find the most basic survival needs and living on equal to or less than one dollar a day. Moderate poverty describes those who survive off of one to two dollars a day, and are most often unable to attend school or receive healthcare. Relative poverty refers to those people who are living below the established poverty line. Poverty must not always be defined by the latter, monetary means, but rather, should speak “about scores of men, women, and children enduring unimaginable obstacles that keep them from fulfilling their most basic human rights and achieving their individual potentials” (NetAid.org 1). Universally, human beings are impoverished, failing to reach potential because of both physical and spiritual poverty.
I walk through the maze of the city. Crowds of people move at rapid paces, this person and that heading here and there and everywhere, mentally astray from what is going on around, and rather, lost in individual thought. Beautiful, hurting, broken, sick: these words encompass a global unity that comes through an impoverished world. There is a child on the street with her hands reaching out desperately as I walk past. I cannot decide whether or not to give. With paper money, she may buy drugs or be forced to hand the earnings to the adult standing in the shadows. There is a baby sitting and pleading, no older than one year, mindlessly staring into the crowds of people rushing off in various directions. The worker in a business suit hurries to a necessary meeting, while a female vendor carries material goods to be sold that sit above leaves of bananas on her head. A mother pulls a child in a blue and white uniform across the quickly moving street of Matatus and Boda Bodas in order to make it to school. I observe, and realize that in these various manners of going about one’s personal business, there is oneness. Poverty is universal, and each individual is carrying this burden on his or her heart. I stop and listen. Shouts, cries, laughter, conversation, yet I hear mere emptiness, loneliness, and neglect. The leper on the street feels hopeless. The begging child understands no other way of life. The business people are working for survival, for betterment of the city and the students are seeking answers. The wealthy individual is often numb to these sightings because of years of not knowing how to handle this brokenness. No matter the differences in physical and emotional wealth, in spiritual or physical hunger, there is a cry for human beings to be understood, and in this common misunderstanding of individuals at the core, there is poverty.
I am now away from the sounds of the urban setting of Kampala and heading in a car from the city of Masaka toward the village of Kigasa. Scattered houses, as opposed to the crammed living spaces within the city, sit nestled in abundant greenery. The surroundings take my breath. It is raining and tropical. Banana leaves, coffee beans, Jackfruit, each blossoming on its branches, trying to outshine the others. There are children picking from these trees, mothers and daughters walking with various foods balanced above braided hair and headscarves, and women and men are working hard on their land, digging intensely, being aided by their large extended families. There is an essence of togetherness and community. We arrive at the home of our rural visit to be received by welcoming displays of affection. The brick house sits in the middle of a village, with inside couches draped by handmade lace pieces. A room next to it is separated by ornately decorated cloth and holding the cherry red wooden kitchen table. We explore the vicinity with several separated rooms yet a small space overall and brick walls painted blue and white. The middle room contains a red mud floor leading outside to an area where cooking and cleaning take place. This is sufficient, impressive, rural, and intriguing. Baskets are scattered about holding Jack fruit and green bananas to make Amatooke. Clothing is hanging with all of its colors, above the assortment of dirt-drenched sandals. The bath area contains only a small pit latrine. To the right, the children and the father are milking the cows. There are goats and wandering stray dogs. During our plentiful meals, the children help translate. They attend boarding school during the school year where they learn English and typical primary school subjects. Joan loves poetry. She is thirteen. She wants to be a writer. Justine wants to be a Nurse. She draws in my journal along with Caroline, helping me learn Lugandan. We leave on Sunday after church. This goodbye is heart wrenching because this family has altered my thought in regards to what is poor.
Having experienced both settings, that of the rural and the urban, I contemplate poverty. There is a beauty to village life, a community that sustains the members. If the world defines this as physical poverty, I must ask why there is such wealth to these spirits. Faces of young girls and boys, of sweet mothers, and of tenacious farmers display intense expression, deep pain, and laborious hard work, yet am I only seeing a cover masking a deep unsettling heartbeat. Still, only a few days spent in Kigasa, and this life is now slightly understood. If poverty is as I have seen in these hearts and on these faces, then the word must be reconsidered. Where is the difference in poverty between this rural setting and that of the urban as described earlier? And then I ask how the term varies from region to region, country to country, and person to person. In experiencing the village life for the mere three days, I saw a family of love that was able to send their children to receive education, and the eldest daughter, Annette, had even journeyed to Kampala to attend university in the city. There is a peace found in the way those in the villages aid one another, yet there is also an overall, beyond the single situation I saw, in the lack of health-care and education across the board.
In discussing with various Ugandans, mixed responses generate. Two individuals may witness the same situation while bringing to the table entirely different perspectives on the good and evil at hand. Some say that the village life is more pleasant, while others explain the life of the city to be brighter and more accommodating. It is mostly agreed upon, however, that both manners of living hold benefits and weaknesses. Grace, a dear woman who grew up in a village, explains that those in the rural regions only appear happy. “It is a choice one makes because this is the way life is going to be: day to day work, yes, enough food, but nothing changes.” She explains it as a consistent yet challenging life. Her parents divorced while she was a mere infant, following with her mother’s death from an illness when Grace was eleven, disabling her to conclude education. Money was anything but abundant and the farm was not flourishing. She was handed to a new family, yet the uncle was unable to provide education for Grace because he already paid for his own children. From a different perspective, another woman explained that the village life holds typically promising meals, and if there is no productive farmer in the family, the surrounding community members will often provide help. She, as opposed to grace who was bored by it, enjoyed the level of comfort and consistency. Despite the perspective, the truth remains that 85% of Ugandans occupy remote rural areas, away from healthcare and necessary supplies, away from steady roads where food can be sold. (Rural Poverty Portal 1) Farmers are not always educated on the right pesticides, and in a country where HIV/ AIDS is spread thickly throughout, there must be a change in the minimal, sparing health care. (Rural Poverty Portal 1)
There has been a more successful decrease of poverty in the city, according to the statistics found by the Rural Poverty Portal, yet there are commonalities shared by the physically impoverished in the city. Their fellow friends who also lack homes feed the children, forming a community even in the crowds of fast paced people. In both surroundings there is a sense that people aid one another in need, yet the amount of food eaten may vary from day to day. A friend, Betty, mentioned that there are days where food is low, and therefore sleep is what occurs, yet on days when food is available, it is shared and portioned out. The city is more promising because jobs are more available, yet, Betty explains, the work is hard and for long hours, sometimes beginning at seven in the morning and not ending until at least nine or ten at night. There are children begging and cripples around. And I ask where poverty ends. Those in the urban setting are forced to keep up with the calls of the city: the tolls, the fees, the jobs, but education can be more easily accessible. Those in the rural have a more consistent food bank and workload that has been passed down through generations, yet normal necessities of life are minimal.
I wonder who are my brothers and sisters, what is needed for life to exist, and what sustains people in the way that those of the city and the villages sustain one another. I think upon one shared smile with a woman wearing a Gomesi that shattered brokenness within the both of us and rather provided a genuine warmth of spirit, because if life is merely a time for connections of soul and mind, then there is beauty in this global poverty. There is a calm in this brokenness. Yes, there are hungry people throughout the countryside. There are starving families and abandoned babies in the rush of the city. Still, there are starving souls and spirits universally. Families that make endless money in the west still fail to find happiness, and the little girl, Joan, who I came across in the village, displayed a contentment that soothed me. The answer is not simple and most definitely not black and white. Somewhere in the middle there is found a human cry of pain and hunger, a human need for love and understanding. In this impoverished world there can be found a sense of global community, and within this global community there may be steps to overall betterment. Poverty must still be pondered within and without, in regards to a person’s heart and his or her relation to the world, because somewhere out there is a family sitting in a red brick home, cooking together within the back hills of Uganda, displaying the unity the comes from care for the other.
.....We leave the rural visit, waving goodbye to all that we have seen, waving goodbye to the plentiful greenery and the warmth of heart. We head back toward the city on a bus filled with individuals. This lady to the right is pondering her mother’s passing away due to an unnamed illness. The man to the left thinks about his first wife and the sweet love the two shared as young adults. The baby in the back can only cry for food because this is what she craves. We sit, Americans encountering a new culture, observing and taking in all that is surrounding us. Within this bus there are people from a plentitude of backgrounds, each seeking something separate from the female or the male seated around, yet there is togetherness in that we are all searching for something. Whether one notices the rituals, the poverty, the traditions, the intense life of the city, or the altered pace of the village, there are a plentitude of differences and similarities shared across cultures. There is a universal cry that must be answered. There must be recognized the unity that you and she and he and we share. When we arrive back to America, we will see a woman, a man, and a child, all lost in personal thoughts. This is no different from here. This is the physical and spiritual hunger that is spoken of. Human beings are interconnected, and through the desire to understand differences, to seek out cultural elements, and to contemplate why each heart beats to a different tune, there is beauty. This beauty cannot be ignored, and rather, must be pursued: in this beauty there is a hope that the cravings shared by humanity across the globe can indeed be responded to.
And so the paper is concluded.
Tomorrow morning I wake up and learn how to basket weave. Today I wandered around Kampala. I loved it. I spent time with Grace, our cook. We laughed. We chatted. My heart again warmed by this new relationship.
I am about to head to Mbale for my October practicum. Sunday we leave. This will be a time that will bring contemplation . I am eager beyond words, yet I would be lying if I didn't also mention a bit of fear and anxiety. Blessings sent your way. And love, of course.
