lantern.

Words cannot explain the joy of this past weekend’s rural visit. There is so much to say. So much learned and observed. By far the most authentic experience yet. I am grateful.

It is Friday morning. Kati, Sarah, and I hear a knock on our door of our FH compound in Kampala. Helen, a spunky, adorable, unpredictable Cornerstone friend, an hour and ½ early of course. Oh Helen. Never can one predict the timing of locals. African time, we call it. A beautiful thing that may quite possibly torment me when I return home. I can see it now. “Class starts at 9, Meghan,” says my professor. “Oh shoot, it is 10:30, isn’t it?” Pray for me and my future class schedule.
We walk down the street- backpacks stuffed to the rim of simple toiletries, journals, i-pods, cameras, long skirts, and mosquito nets. This is even more noticeable than our already established difference of being foreigners. Our Matatu (taxi) takes us to the Old Taxi Park. Then we hop on a bus that will leave for a 3 hour journey to Masaka upon filling up. I grab a window seat to prevent motion sickness. Success. Window shopping here in Kampala. Rather than having to walk around, I can actually just sit on a taxi or a bus as multiple vendors head to my window insisting that I need a red beaded necklace, a blue and gray pair of socks, MTN phone minutes, pink razors, children’s toys, soda, and water. Then there is the man who manages to squeeze his head through the window only to smile at me and say, “Hello beautiful Americana, where are you going? You must need biscuits.”
After several laughs at this entertaining seen, our bus thankfully fills up to the rim with people and heads out of town. We manage to squeeze through the hectic park. I have yet to understand how such a large bus fits through such small space. And how such a bus SPEEDS around cars on the highway without flipping. And I wonder why Shania Twain and other country music is blasting the entire way. The excitements of Africa.
I sit with Kati as we discuss life and goodness. Helen and her friend Annette sit to the other side and Sarah is squished between two men in the row ahead of me. Shops. Hair salons. Restaurants. People walking, talking. Beautiful scenery comes. Greenery in Africa. Breathtaking and lush. And I listen to my music and absorb, eager for arrival to the village.
We arrive in Masaka and take a small white car deep into the hills. I am reminded of Ireland. A road only the size of one vehicle and bumpy. the surroundings take my breath. It is raining and tropical. After an hour drive, our home. It is afternoon/ evening. The family rushes outside to greet their daughter Annette and their visitors. A mood of joy. The brick house sits in the middle of a village. Couches draped by handmade lace pieces. A room next to it separated by ornately decorated cloth and holding the cherry red wooden kitchen table. Helen explains that the father (who does not speak English) is grateful for our coming. We explore the vicinity. Several separated rooms yet a small space overall. Rooms with painted blue and white and brick and wood tables. The middle room with a red mud floor leading outside to an area to cook and clean. Sufficient and impressive. Rural. Intriguing. Baskets scattered about holding Jack fruit and green bananas to make Amatooke (mushed bananas). Sandals sitting outside the door. Clothing hanging with all of its colors and skirts and shirts. The bath area is to the left. Only a small square hole in the ground for the restroom. It takes practice, but can indeed be done. To the right, the cows are being milked by the children and the father. I name a cow Molly and the children giggle with me. There are goats. And stray dogs. The farm I always wished for as a child.

A father. Two mothers. Sixteen Children. Grandmothers. We then eat. and eat. and eat. Four meals PLUS added snacking daily. Breakfast. Tea. with milk fresh out of the cow. lunch. bread snack. second lunch. dinner. After dinner tea. Never in my life have I eaten so much in such a small amount of time. Wow. I am full. and grateful at that!
We are given a bedroom as about seven of the family girls help us set up the mosquito nets. We wake up early and help clean. All working together. Sharing. laughing. As we help peel bananas, they laugh kindly at our inadequacy. The men work in the other area. We eat more.
And now a funny story.
One of the mothers tells the daughter that I look smart, a compliment on my clothing choice. I have recently learned a few Luganda words, so I yell across the yard to her "W'Olumbe!". Oops. I was thinking that I had said "Thankyou!" Nope. Not at all. The word I said means death. Wuebale is what I had meant to say. So rather than yelling thank you, I indeed reference death in a loud voice. After an awkward moment of silence that seemed endless, we all laugh hilariously. Oh dear me.
Then we take a boda boda to a local funeral. The motorcycle ride was thrilling, comical, and joyful. Sarah and I yell to those we pass, “Jambo, Ssebo! Jambo Nnyabo!” (Goodbye! Goodbye!) Again, we are a spectacle both on the way and at the funeral. And I hear wailing. Piercing cries from the women related to the elder who died. My heart is weakened. Broken by the sounds. An eerie setting.
The rest of the weekend is filled with community time. Family. Children giggling and sharing with us. An evening spent at the other mother’s home. Candle lit evenings. Tea. Food. Laughter. Dancing to American Hip-Hop with the mother and two daughters because this is the only station coming in clearly. I try to demonstrate line-dancing. I am amazed at the quick connection with such a language barrier. And grateful for the children's ability to 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. Erin is only 5 and entirely cute.
We leave on Sunday after church. This goodbye is heartwrenching because my life has been altered by this family.

And aside from these factual events, I contemplate poverty, polygamy, joy.

A beauty to this lifestyle. My heart is warmed. Struggling to find words. If poverty is this rural area, then why is there such a wealth to these spirits. And such a method of sustainability. And I cannot forget this time. These people. Only a few days. A few evenings. A few memories. Yet a connection of the heart. A time shared. Moments of peace. Looking at the stars on Saturday night. The clear sky. Reflection and appreciation for the beauty of this family. I spent time drawing the children. They loved it. Sweet faces. Faces of expression and pain and growth and challenges.
What a life that is now slightly understood.
I may see more light. I feel it. Because if poverty is as this life is, then poverty must be redefined. Then there is a different sense of poverty at home, in the States, in Kampala, in every separate setting. Even though there are two wives, a community still. A functioning day to day. An energy of love surrounding these brick walls and red dirt and rainfall. And while I sat observing, and when I think now, I am most overjoyed. Not even darkness. But joy. Of course only three days in this setting, but could I say I feel brighter color? a lighter mood? more than what I have felt. A shattering of the dark cloud and I will consider this still…
And I wonder what this life means for me. Who I am. Who I need. What sustains me the way these people sustain one another. And how a simple moment in time with a family in a rural setting can indeed alter thought. How one shared smile with a women in a Gomesi can adjust this brokenness. If life is merely a time for connections of soul and mind and heart, then maybe I see more beauty. If my art can be capturing expressions through figure and face, than no doubt I will pursue this endlessly. Joan. The steady, calm, serene, focused, mysterious thirteen year old. I am revitalized by their beauty and again inspired artistically... something that has been scattered since arrival.
Yes I still wish for companionship, but this can be spent apart from a man, from friends, from whatever. Companionship with the world around me however this must be defined in the present. But I felt this last weekend. I felt a hope that has been long lost. A connection to my own family and this one and the world.

And words are inadequate. Entirely. But these people have touched me. Thus far, the most rich experience.

Blessings to you at home. Ponder poverty still. Ponder your hearts and your relation to the world, your unity with all, because somewhere out there is a family sitting in a red brick home, cooking together within the back hills of Uganda, displaying the unity that comes from care for the other.