Many Voices, One Song: Week One
How can I begin to describe my first week in Uganda? It has been both surreal and too real. A combination of a “Save the Children” commercial and the most intense applied-learning economics class imaginable. I have held hands with more children this week than I have in the past ten years, and every time, I feel a surge of hope, a slight pressure of expectation, and a reinvigorating sense of responsibility and duty.
Waking up in the morning and stepping out under a lavender sky and the silver sliver of a crescent moon, I try to mentally prepare myself for our visit to one of the five breakfast centers that Namugongo funds. Beth, Lindsey, Nakato and I begin our walk down the red clay paths, into the cool and damp air. The village is still sleeping. An orange sherbet glow gradually grows out of the east corner of the sky beginning its slow westward mélange with the soft purple of fading night; creating the light blue that will govern today.
Is it strange to say that this feels like a sacred mission? As figures appear along the amber road, emerging from the fog, I am overcome by a strange desire to pray. Men on bicycles with large bundles of sticks push their heavy loads up steep, unpaved hills. It is 5:30 in the morning and a heavy air hangs around us. The vegetation is lush, green, and tropical.
As we arrive at the breakfast center, a series of entirely unfamiliar interactions commence. Ugandans have a tradition of kneeling in front of a respected visitor in order to introduce themselves. A parade of sleepy-eyed and yet eager children, ranging from 6-12 begin this practice of reception. It is discomfiting to have a small child kneel to you, and it takes getting used to. Every time, I feel like I should be the one kneeling, for being partially responsible for the vastly unequal divide of wealth and resources that forces the crushing weight of poverty and illness on their shoulders.
The breakfast center caters to close to 200 children every morning. It is one of five in this network and effectively serves every child a cup of hot porridge to start their day. It is an important service since most children would go without any nourishment until the evening on account of lack of familial resources.
That afternoon, we return for a session of music therapy led by Lindsey and Beth. This is an uplifting and enriching time; where laughter, singing, dancing and energy overflow the container which we are working in. Still, at the end of the day, I feel an intense pressure to change the system; to figure it out, to come up with some panacea for paucity and indigence that will address everything from health, to education, to individual empowerment. In many ways, I feel useless, even guilty; and that heaviness translates itself into an earnest, if not impractical attempt to radically improve quotidian life for the people I have met since arriving.
The psychosocial needs of these kids are not being met. Their basic nutritional needs are, at best, on shaky ground. The economic condition of their care-givers is, most-often, dire. And worse than that, the entire world is blind to the tragedy. We are blind to the fact that these kids exist; blind to the fact that besides being in constant physical jeopardy, their mental health is under constant attack by the isolation, desperation, and stigmatization caused by HIV/AIDS.
-Kiob (Robert)
