The Have’s and The Have-Not’s

Tommy Grimm
Katikamu Parish, Uganda

Throughout my time in Uganda, it’s been difficult to see students often divided between the have’s and have-not’s. There are the boarders, who live at the school in the dormitories, and the day-scholars, who walk to and from school every morning and evening. The boarders use the school classrooms to study every night with dependable light and power. Many day-scholars walk long distances, have household responsibilities like cooking and cleaning, and have to study by lantern at night (when there’s money for kerosene!). I’ve heard many day-scholars say they wish they were boarders.

There are the students who eat at lunchtime, and those who do not. I hate seeing students littered along the school perimeter, standing despondently, while other students line up expectedly with plates in hand in front of the school kitchen. Boarders are required to pay the meal fees, but for many day-scholars, the lunch fee is the first thing sacrificed among the educational expenses.

There are the students with parents, and those without them. There was a visitation day a couple weeks ago, when parents have the opportunity to visit their students at school, to meet their teachers, and to inquire about their children’s grades. Some parents could be seen walking across the campus with bags full of cookies, fruit, and supplies (accompanied with a pocket full of money for the lucky kid, no doubt). Poorer parents brought nothing but rice and meat to share with their child for one meal, providing a break from the regular meal of cornmeal and beans. Some kids didn’t have any parents show up, either because there wasn’t enough money for the travel expenses, or because there is no mother and father, and the guardian has too many obligations to visit. One girl who I’ve become good friends with told me that she usually stays in the dormitory the whole day; the sight of all the mothers makes the memory of her deceased mother too painful.

The examples are legion. There are those who have party clothes for a special occasion, and those stuck in their school uniforms. Those who have money to enter the school dance, and those peering in from the windows outside. Those who have strong enough grades to attend university, and those whose prospects upon graduating are dim.

I hate this reality, but I’ve found it inevitable, even in my interactions with students. When I walk through campus, there are those students whom I recognize, and those whom I don’t. I only know the names of a fraction of the students, despite my best efforts. And then there are the ones everyone knows I’m closest to, and everyone else. I try not to play favorites as much as I can, but I can’t be friends with over one-thousand students. I don’t want to exaggerate my importance to the students, but I know they notice whether the American knows their name or not. They ask me why it is I don’t know their name!

Needless to say, this dichotomy is uncomfortable for me. However, for the students, it’s a part of life. There’s no agony over the separation—for them, of course there are the rich and the poor, the beautiful and the ugly, the sons and daughters and the orphans. It’s a reality they become accustomed to at a young age. You can’t hide differences in a small village with open doors and shared possessions. What I’ve been left grappling with is not how these striking disparities exist in Africa and not in America, but how they’re casually disclosed in Africa and well-hidden in America. Life is unfair, but I’d rather forget that, and I’m able to back home. For a church to embrace the rich and poor, the privileged and the marginalized, maybe what’s is needed is not only a hopeful imagination to envision a different world, but also a dogged courage among those on top to face reality, with all of its needs and indictments.

(The above picture was taken in a nearby village at an annual Catholic celebration for a Ugandan martyr born there. I’m with Nagalema Grace, a student at the primary school where I teach. Grace has become a great friend to me.)

Convicted in Paus Preto

Last week I visited a quilombola. A quilombola is a completely black community. Historically, run-away slaves established quilombolas during the Colonial period. The communities were self-sustaining and the community members were trained in defense, allowing them to defend themselves from slave owners who tried to re-enslave them. The particular quilombola that I visited, Paus Pretos, is not a historical quilombola; it is not a site where runaway slaves set up their own community. Rather, it is actually more like a segregated ghetto; the government forced a number of black families into this part of the town and just called it a quilombola. The name of the community, Paus Pretos is a demeaning name given by those outside of the community. “Preto” means black, “paus” actually means wood but is more commonly used as a derogatory word for the male genitalia.

The people in the community survive without some of the most basic needs. They lack access to water, good education, and a hospital. Their only source of water is rain, they have a contraption that collects the rain water for the community but if it does not rain, there is no water. There is a school in the community, but they do not have enough educators. I spoke with a man who said that his dream was to become a writer, but that he did not know anyone in the city who worked in industry except service or agriculture. Many of the children have disabilities because the nearest hospital is over an hour away (an hour away driving and no one has a car). But even that hospital is small and all the serious issues, for example, being born with a physical disability, has to be taken care of in a hospital in a major city. The closest major city is Maceió which is more than 3 hours away (driving).

It is, perhaps, the hardest thing in the world to see other people’s pain, other people’s needs, other people's dispair and to not be able to do anything about it. I felt so angry, and so frustrated, and so powerless. But the experience convicted me to the core. When I think about my life and the plans I had for it: sitting in the library trying to find a new innovative way to discuss the meaning of I Corinthians, or reading a law book trying to pass the bar, or trying to write a dissertation in Womanist theology. I realized right there in Paus Pretos that none of it matters unless my goal is to help people that are in need. As long as I am sitting by trying to bring myself glory in the name of God, instead helping to create God’s kingdom on earth, I have failed.

Not in the States...

Tommy Grimm
Katikamu Parish, Uganda
7/20/09

I love moments here where I think with a smile, “This would never happen in the States.” (I try to limit the number of times that thought is connected with a scowl.) Yesterday, I was on a ferry traveling back from a visit to an island on Lake Victoria. It was raucous inside, but from anywhere in the cabin, you could hear above the noise a woman singing hymns and gospel songs. As I listened to her belt “I Surrender All,” I considered how in the States, everyone would be either annoyed at her or embarrassed for her. But here in Uganda, it’s hardly unexpected or inappropriate. And if it did bother someone, he would let her know, and she would respond however she wanted, and no one around would feel even a twinge of awkwardness (except perhaps the visiting Westerners). As I wrote a letter to a friend and counted the minutes until I’d be terra firma, I was glad to share the company of Ugandans.

A similar experience occurred a couple of weeks ago. I was on a taxi-van with a couple Duke friends and three Ugandan passengers. An older woman gets on with her four grandchildren. There aren’t enough seats for her grandchildren, and the old ma’s lap clearly isn’t big enough to accommodate all of them. But these children need to get home, and the other passengers don’t have any special right to their squat of space, so the kids just crowd around their grandmother, sitting on the laps of other passengers or cramming between their legs and the seat. Not wanting to be left out, I grab one of them and place them on my lap (another thing I love here, how parents less protective of their kids with strangers). After we got out, my friends and I discussed how that would have been uncommon in the States, how we expect a certain amount of personal space in public settings. (When I see a movie in a crowded theater, I’m constantly thinking about the distribution of my arm rests, whether they’re being equally shared or not). Personal space is unheard of here.

I’m grateful for this extended time in Uganda because, hopefully, it’s stretching my social imagination beyond what I have lived and known in the States for the past twenty-six years. Through experiences like the ones above, I come to question why I have certain expectations and assumptions for who I am and how I interact with my surrounding community. The Church is called to be a peculiar people whose culture is formed around the gospel, but there is no non-enculturated space we can inhabit. Rather, it’s through living among strangers with strange cultures that we see how much we toe our social line and how we might better live out our Kingdom identity.