Walking and thinking

The excitement has died down a little since the Gulu/Kitgum extravaganza, thank goodness. That said, not too much has been going on other than a lot of walking around Walukaba and Danita, spending time with the women. Walking around a lot has been really nice, actually, because not only is it great to be outside and feel connected to what’s going on, but it’s definitely a good time to talk about what we’ve experienced and absorb everything we’re doing.

The other day, Rachel and I took about a 4 hour walk, which was fun...we walked out to Masese, a small, very poor village right on Lake Victoria. We had taken a couple kites and some bubbles with us, so when we got there, we broke out the toys and were surrounded by kids within about 5 seconds. The kids had a great time with the bubbles, and enjoyed the kites even though they didn’t really work that well! I gave my kite to a little boy, and he actually came back to say thank you, which was AWESOME because they usually just take whatever you give them and run away. After we finished, we walked a little farther along the road, and a group of 5 boys followed us (in the picture) and sang us lots of songs along the way, which was really fun.

Lately, a lot of the cultural differences between the US and here have really caught my attention. One, the role of women here is VERY different than at home…the majority of the time, they do all the work and the men sit around and don’t do anything all day. Two, people here seem very out-of-touch with themselves. When we’ve asked them questions like, “What is your favorite thing to do?” or “How would you describe yourself?” they have no idea how to answer. It might just be that they can’t express themselves well enough in English to answer, but even people who speak English very well can’t seem to really comprehend what we’re asking. Three, it seems that thinking of the future doesn’t really happen much. Most people seem to just exist in the moment, and don’t bother to think about what has happened to them or what their dreams are for the future. Who knows why this is, but I kind of think it might be because for so many people here, the purpose of their life is to survive, not necessarily to enjoy living. Coming from the US, where the culture is so incredibly focused on having fun and enjoying yourself, that concept has been really hard to understand! Maybe I need to stop trying to analyze everything, and just accept that people here live their lives differently, and that’s totally ok!