After writing my midterm, I realized what I have learned this semester. Rather than retype it to be interesting/blog worthy, I decided to copy and paste it. Sorry for it not being the most interesting thing you will ever read, but it's what is on my heart right now.
If one asked about the characteristics of a social worker, ’relational’ would be bound to come up. As a senior social work major, relationships were something that I thought I had looked at from different viewpoints. I simplified all I learned about relationships into talking, listening, and coming along side someone However, relationships are allowed to look different. It is not always about talking or even about listening. Sometimes relationships look like presence and showing up.
There is an intentionality about Ugandan culture and the relationships that are formed here. Upon arriving at my Ugandan home, I am asked how I am in at least three different ways by everyone in the family. If one looks at the few greetings I have learned in Luganda, the intentionality is made even more clear. No one has taught me a simple “hi,” instead I was taught greet someone with “how are you?.” It is typically followed up by then asking them how their day has gone. While this occurs in the United States, we have the ability to greet and not invest in the relationship. We can say hello, not ask any questions and leave.
There are many examples of the intentional nature of my Ugandan relationships. One of the main relationships that sticks out is my Ugandan roommate. I had gotten sick during the first month here and I was in the room sleeping. My roommate would wake me up to check that I was doing okay. She did not just ask how I was feeling only if she happened to make eye contact with me; she purposefully sought me out to ask how I was doing.
I had an interesting conversation after that experience with my host mom about what it means to live with communal intentional relationships. Her point was why would you want to be alone when the worst is happening to you? She said, that for this reason mental health looks different in Africa because they do not let you suffer alone. Though I know mental health is bigger than not letting people be alone, it is a starting place. It reminds me of Compassion, where is says “what really counts is that in moments of pain and suffering someone stays with us (Nouwen, McNeill & Morrison 1983).” We study relationships in social work from the view point that we will not always have the answer or words to make them feel better. Through watching intensional relationships here, I am realizing we have the start of an answer; it comes down to presence.
Nothing has made this more clear than the time that I have spent with my host family. One Saturday, I went over to spend time with my family and learn about their catering business. I was not helpful, if anything I got in the way. Right before I left, my mom thanked me for my help that day. Once I expressed feelings of of being unhelpful, my mom disagreed and said that showing up was enough. My family valued the fact that I wanted to be part of the family, even though I am not the most helpful member. I have learned so much through the relationship with my family that I could never have learned on my own. Growth happens through relationships, not being on my own. I do not always learn about culture or my family by asking every question that I have, though I do ask a lot of questions. In contrast, I learn the most by being there and being present. My sister does not speak English, but I have discovered that joy is a universal language. It’s a language that speaks volumes without ever saying a word; however, you need to show up to see it.
Uganda and America are very different places and often we do not understand each other. Though despite the differences, there is a universal need to be a part of something and have people support you. Engaging makes you apart of something bigger. This has been the largest learning curve here. It is easy for me to stand back and observe. Though there is growth through observation, it will only get me so far. Being an observer will not help me build relationships and will leave my global education lacking. The semester would be a waste if I just tried to gain as much head knowledge as I could in the short months I have left. This semester is about being intentional with my learning and my relationships. This semester is about valuing the people who have come into my life. This semester is about being present and engage with the rich culture of Uganda.
Though I have studied relationships for the past three and a half years, I have room to grow. I will probably never feel comfortable waking up my roommate if she is sleeping, but I can to make the extra effort to ask her questions instead of running in the room, grabbing whatever I needed and leaving with only saying hello. Though I will probably never be an actual asset to my family when they are cooking, I can be present. I can take steps in the right direction in growing my relationships while I am here. I will also be able to carry these into my social work profession. In the International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, it shares that BSW students who study abroad have substantial shifts in perspective (2012). I am noticing this already and am excited to see how much more I can grow as a social worker this semester.
God designed relationships across all the cultures. He is a relational God. He strives to have a personal relationship with us. I am learning through Ugandan’s how to have a relationship that is meaningful, valuable and intentional. These traits will also translate to my relationship with my heavenly Father. This is the biggest take away of all of them. I have learned that being present is import with people and even more important with God. It’s not about knowing exactly what he is telling me to do. It’s not about praying and asking him the right questions. It’s about seeking him first and growing within his presence
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Calm before the storm
This week has been much calmer than most of the other weeks. I don't have terrible much to say.
I was incredibly blessed to not be sick this past week as so many of my social work friends. There are ten in my class and if I'm right I believe only two of us did not get sick. I was blessed to be one of the healthy ones, many thanks to my prayer warriors at home! I was sick during the first couple of weeks, but I'm so thankful it was literally a 24 hour bug and I was back to "normal" the next day.
This past week was full of meetings at ROTOM in which I learned how to take minutes. AKA I learned that being a secretary or a transcriber is most definitely not my calling. I learned a lot about the company and what goes into being a nonprofit.
Today (Sunday) was a very chill day with my family. I went to church and hung out at home. Unfortunately, a lot of the clan was busy and out of the house today. However, the one of the best parts of having a large family is there's still lots of people to love when people are gone. One of my brothers took me to see all the rabbits and I got to hold a baby rabbit that was literally born this morning.
Next week promises a very busy schedule- midterms are due (crazy right!?!), I'm heading to Kampala to get my visa and on Friday, I am leaving to rural home stays. This is basically the equivalent to our spring break- I will have no classes or readings during this time. I will be living with a family for about 6 days in rural Soroti (the east part of Uganda).
Prayer Requests:
I was incredibly blessed to not be sick this past week as so many of my social work friends. There are ten in my class and if I'm right I believe only two of us did not get sick. I was blessed to be one of the healthy ones, many thanks to my prayer warriors at home! I was sick during the first couple of weeks, but I'm so thankful it was literally a 24 hour bug and I was back to "normal" the next day.
This past week was full of meetings at ROTOM in which I learned how to take minutes. AKA I learned that being a secretary or a transcriber is most definitely not my calling. I learned a lot about the company and what goes into being a nonprofit.
Today (Sunday) was a very chill day with my family. I went to church and hung out at home. Unfortunately, a lot of the clan was busy and out of the house today. However, the one of the best parts of having a large family is there's still lots of people to love when people are gone. One of my brothers took me to see all the rabbits and I got to hold a baby rabbit that was literally born this morning.
Next week promises a very busy schedule- midterms are due (crazy right!?!), I'm heading to Kampala to get my visa and on Friday, I am leaving to rural home stays. This is basically the equivalent to our spring break- I will have no classes or readings during this time. I will be living with a family for about 6 days in rural Soroti (the east part of Uganda).
Prayer Requests:
- Pray for midterms. There is a lot of papers due next week
- Pray for the family that I will be living with. I am so blessed by my Mukono family- pray that I have an experience just as amazing in Soroti.
- Pray for the health of the girls who got sick and pray that the rest of us continue to be healthy (especially over rural home stays).
Sunday, February 3, 2019
A Full Weekend
Friday I got to go home overnight. My brother came and picked me up (it was after our curfew so I couldn't walk home). My cross cultural social work group running late and I couldn't contact him to tell him I was going late, yet he waited over a half hour to make sure that I could come home.
It was so good to go home and see my family again,. To my surprise, three more children are in the family. My mom says that she collects people like candy, if that doesn't describe her amazing heart I don't know what will. I told her that her true calling is social work, she just laughed. They are my mother's nephews and nieces (yay more girls!). They stay at the house during school. Ugandan's have a very long holy days break. My brothers have to go back to school tomorrow. They have mixed opinions on whether or not that's a good thing. I told them Americans went back over a month ago, my brother said he wanted at least another month. We played cards and talked, I'm always so blessed to be around my family.
Saturday morning started very early, by six o'clock almost the entire house was awake! We began the job of butchering the chickens for the catering event. If you do not want the details, please skip to the next paragraph. I got to help, which had a considering learning curve but my brothers were nothing but patient explaining what exactly I needed to do. I was offered the knife, but declined so I just held the chicken while my brother cut the head off. I would like to state that chicken with it's head cut off is very realistic. I really thought it was more of a joke but you really have to hold on tight for a good while after that. The next thing was to put them in hot water, this makes it much easier to take off the feathers. I am very slow at taking off the feathers, I'm also not incredible at it. My brothers would probably lie to you and tell you that I was very helpful, but I will be the first to admit I probably slowed them down. I then was given the knife and told that I had to cut off the feet at the "knee joint" (not really sure if this is accurate chicken anatomy). The next step was my brother gutting the chicken. He would give me the gizzard, which I cut in half, emptied and cleaned. That was my morning, I think we did between 8-10 chickens. I'm not exactly sure.
The event we were catering for was a family get together. It was fun as the family hosted a USP friend. Once we started cooking, I was given the job of peeling potatoes (they call them Irish's). That was one thing I could do without much instruction :) After a bit of time, I started following my brother around so he would teach me things. I "helped" with frying the chicken. Namely I stood around and he let me stir once and take them off. Fun fact about cooking here, it was all done over a fire. It was so cool to watch them cook for that many people and they just used some bricks (to make the pots stay a good distance from the fire), long pieces of firework (as it would burn in the center they would move in inwards, kinda hard to explain) and really large metal pots. I also learned how to make rice, which again I mean I stood around and watched them. An interesting part of the event was lunch was supposed to be made for one, but we didn't end up serving until five thirty. I got to serve the chapati. I also got to sample everything- big fan. I had to head back to UCU shortly after that so that I could make the seven o'clock curfew. That wraps up Saturday, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures.
Today, I went to Kampala for the first time. The first step is to find a taxi- this is not difficult when you are a muzungu. There were four of us on this adventure and none of us had been to Kampala before. It takes about an hour to get twelve miles because of traffic and road conditions. A taxi is not what you would think in the states- you flag it down the same, however it's basically a twelve passenger van that you stuff full of people along the route. It's a pretty good time had by all. We made it and then went to the African craft fair. It was pretty cool, but there is a lot of pressure to buy and to walk into the shops. I got a couple of cards for 2000 shillings, a skirt for 30,000 and a gift for a person...It sounds like a lot of money but a quick calculation is take off three zeros and divide by 4. It's not exact but it works well enough. Negation is not my strong suit, but you need to try it here or you will be WAY over charged. Even negotiating, I probably still got over charged.
We then found a coffee shop- the fast has finally been broken. It was legit the greatest thing. We then headed to Cafe Java. It's basically an American restaurant. A great change of menu from rice and beans. I got a Philly cheese-steak and a chocolate milkshake. 10/10 would recommend. Then we headed home in a taxi.
On our way back we hit a pothole, the trunk popped open and a lock box fell out. It was super funny, probably not to the person whose stuff feel out....but it was funny to us. We were laughing and talking the whole way home, we almost didn't get off the taxi on time. Luckily, Susanna caught it just in time.
It was an adventure filled weekend, but it has been one of my favorites here in Uganda. I got family time, I got to hang out with my new friends, I got American food, and I got coffee. I also withdrew money for a safari, so I'm pretty pumped about that.
p.s. this is my home town
It was so good to go home and see my family again,. To my surprise, three more children are in the family. My mom says that she collects people like candy, if that doesn't describe her amazing heart I don't know what will. I told her that her true calling is social work, she just laughed. They are my mother's nephews and nieces (yay more girls!). They stay at the house during school. Ugandan's have a very long holy days break. My brothers have to go back to school tomorrow. They have mixed opinions on whether or not that's a good thing. I told them Americans went back over a month ago, my brother said he wanted at least another month. We played cards and talked, I'm always so blessed to be around my family.
Saturday morning started very early, by six o'clock almost the entire house was awake! We began the job of butchering the chickens for the catering event. If you do not want the details, please skip to the next paragraph. I got to help, which had a considering learning curve but my brothers were nothing but patient explaining what exactly I needed to do. I was offered the knife, but declined so I just held the chicken while my brother cut the head off. I would like to state that chicken with it's head cut off is very realistic. I really thought it was more of a joke but you really have to hold on tight for a good while after that. The next thing was to put them in hot water, this makes it much easier to take off the feathers. I am very slow at taking off the feathers, I'm also not incredible at it. My brothers would probably lie to you and tell you that I was very helpful, but I will be the first to admit I probably slowed them down. I then was given the knife and told that I had to cut off the feet at the "knee joint" (not really sure if this is accurate chicken anatomy). The next step was my brother gutting the chicken. He would give me the gizzard, which I cut in half, emptied and cleaned. That was my morning, I think we did between 8-10 chickens. I'm not exactly sure.
The event we were catering for was a family get together. It was fun as the family hosted a USP friend. Once we started cooking, I was given the job of peeling potatoes (they call them Irish's). That was one thing I could do without much instruction :) After a bit of time, I started following my brother around so he would teach me things. I "helped" with frying the chicken. Namely I stood around and he let me stir once and take them off. Fun fact about cooking here, it was all done over a fire. It was so cool to watch them cook for that many people and they just used some bricks (to make the pots stay a good distance from the fire), long pieces of firework (as it would burn in the center they would move in inwards, kinda hard to explain) and really large metal pots. I also learned how to make rice, which again I mean I stood around and watched them. An interesting part of the event was lunch was supposed to be made for one, but we didn't end up serving until five thirty. I got to serve the chapati. I also got to sample everything- big fan. I had to head back to UCU shortly after that so that I could make the seven o'clock curfew. That wraps up Saturday, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures.
Today, I went to Kampala for the first time. The first step is to find a taxi- this is not difficult when you are a muzungu. There were four of us on this adventure and none of us had been to Kampala before. It takes about an hour to get twelve miles because of traffic and road conditions. A taxi is not what you would think in the states- you flag it down the same, however it's basically a twelve passenger van that you stuff full of people along the route. It's a pretty good time had by all. We made it and then went to the African craft fair. It was pretty cool, but there is a lot of pressure to buy and to walk into the shops. I got a couple of cards for 2000 shillings, a skirt for 30,000 and a gift for a person...It sounds like a lot of money but a quick calculation is take off three zeros and divide by 4. It's not exact but it works well enough. Negation is not my strong suit, but you need to try it here or you will be WAY over charged. Even negotiating, I probably still got over charged.
We then found a coffee shop- the fast has finally been broken. It was legit the greatest thing. We then headed to Cafe Java. It's basically an American restaurant. A great change of menu from rice and beans. I got a Philly cheese-steak and a chocolate milkshake. 10/10 would recommend. Then we headed home in a taxi.
On our way back we hit a pothole, the trunk popped open and a lock box fell out. It was super funny, probably not to the person whose stuff feel out....but it was funny to us. We were laughing and talking the whole way home, we almost didn't get off the taxi on time. Luckily, Susanna caught it just in time.
It was an adventure filled weekend, but it has been one of my favorites here in Uganda. I got family time, I got to hang out with my new friends, I got American food, and I got coffee. I also withdrew money for a safari, so I'm pretty pumped about that.
p.s. this is my home town
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