Letting Go

Last weekend we celebrated one of the boys’ birthday here at home. Most of the boys don’t know when their real birthdays are because they ran to the streets when they were between 5 and 10 years old and have no documentation. The boys choose their birthdays and we celebrate with soda, sweet bread, and watermelon and/or bananas.

David’s party was last Saturday night. As soon as we finished eating dinner seated around the main room of our house, the boys started dancing and spraying their soda in the air. In my head, I was thinking of the possible lecture (--you’re wasting soda which we only ever have as a special treat, thus we won’t buy it again--). 

Once the floor was slick with soda, one of the boys filled a basin with water and proceeded to throw it into the room, showering many of us. (At this point I’m thinking of all of the possible reasons to scold them… “We are renting this house and need to take care of it and not flood it”…. “What will the 2 guests think who are here? What image of us are we leaving with them?” etc…)

The basin of water was the first of many and we spent an hour dodging water basins both inside and outside the house. When things finally settled down, we got the boys together to affirm David and cut the cake. This session ended in a giant wrestling match on the slick floor, several additional water basins being thrown, and a minor knife wound because we didn’t get it out of their fast enough after the cutting of the cake.

As I witnessed this party, marveling at the boys’ childish spirits despite the many years that hardened them on the street, I had to work to silence my critical voice. I realized that for the past three years, I have worked with many youth groups in different capacities and have been rather results driven, since funders demand results, transformation, and incredible turnarounds in unrealistic timetables. I have been hyper sensitive to what others will think as a result of being the butt of constant criticism (ie: Those kids are in the youth group and they’re the same kids doing x, y, and z…. They just go to that group to shout and waste their time, etc. etc.). This dynamic has led me to be on the defensive and to push “orderliness” and good manners on occasions where I really should just let go.

This life is really too short to spend it scolding those who don’t fit into the mold of a civilized birthday party.  If we spent more time throwing water on each other and having unrestricted fun, this world of norms, results, and rules would probably be a much better place.

While I was getting ready for bed and shaking from the cold, two of the boys knocked on my door to bring me tea. I asked one of them if he had enjoyed the party, and he responded: “Yes, Auntie, I have enjoyed so so so so so so much.”  At the end of the day, that’s really all that matters.

I admire Amanda for her grace in both guiding these boys and giving them the freedom to let go. If this were another home of strict rules and punishment by canings (which is the norm in homes and schools alike here), all of these boys would have run back to their lives on the streets long ago.

Many hands cutting the cake.

Just before the cutting of the cakes.

Being a Bridge

One of my favorite things to be in this world is a bridge. I love connecting great people, gently shoving people in certain directions and watching them grow, sending people to study abroad in El Salvador knowing they won’t come back the same, etc…

Four years ago I was teaching a high school class in South Bend about my study-abroad experience in El Salvador. During the students’ 5 minute passing period, I mentioned to the homeroom teacher that I had spent time in Uganda. She expressed interest in the country and in the work I’d done and I connected her via email to those I had worked with here.

Shortly there after, she decided to say “yes” to this random invitation. She quit teaching and moved to Uganda for a month-long volunteer stint. She ended up staying indefinitely, and has since started a home for 23 boys who had lived for up to 10 years on Kampala’s streets before entering the home.

I can take no credit for the amazing work Amanda is doing in Uganda, but I do think that her “yes” is certainly a testament to what we are capable of doing with our lives when we respond wholeheartedly to life’s invitations and do not let fear/rationality/self-doubt hold us back. Four years after our meeting, I am lucky enough to be living for the year in Amanda’s home with the boys that have stolen her heart.

Reunions

On Tuesday of this week I as finally able to go back to Ssenge boys’ home where I lived four years ago.  Seeing the boys I love so much 4 years later, 4 years taller, 4 years more mature, handsome, charming…. was such a blessing. I wanted to cry as I found each one in his classroom at school (I went to their school to find them as they were in classes when I arrived). I had such a joyful reunion with them and with the home staff and they were all amazed that I can still speak Luganda (conversationally, that is… I couldn’t translate to save my life).

I am so grateful that the mysterious workings of invitations and hearts willing to listen and say yes have ensured that these boys have been well cared for these past four years, and primero Dios this will continue to be the case in the years to come. I will be spending one night a week at their home to continue to be a presence in their lives while I’m back in Uganda.

Ronal was the baby of the home when I left... he is so old and mature now and his English is great!

Shafik, who is almost taller than me now! At Ssenge boys' home.

I have also found some of the same boys still living on the streets whom I left four years ago, having treated many of their gaping wounds and having spent many days and nights in the slums with them. These reunions have broken my heart and have left me feeling impotent and angry at the unfairness of this life. I found one, Joseph, a few weeks back, and he is now taller than me, but his big brown (usually high) eyes and tattered clothes haven’t changed a bit. He saw me and nearly tackled me with a huge hug as he yelled “Nakyanzi!!!” (my Ugandan name). While I have been living, loving, growing and changing these past four years, he has been in the same slum, sniffing the same drugs, being brutally beaten by the same slum residents and City Council (local police) members…. He hugged me with such hopefulness in his eyes and surely thought I would be in the slums everyday like I was before…. but I won’t be this time.

Home Life

I am only here for 9 months, and I am staying at Amanda’s home for 23 boys between the ages of 14 and 19. They are now off the streets and back in school and overcoming addiction, etc. and have made amazing turnarounds.  I am trying to invest most of my time at this home so as to plant roots in one place and have a sustained presence (at least for 9 months) rather than being scattered about. This means that I won’t be in the slums like I was before and that I have no answers for the kids I know and love there. Our home is full and Amanda works miracles to find enough money to keep it going each month as is. She is taking some initial steps towards starting income-generating projects here (we will soon have 100 chickens at home, for instance) but self-sustainability is a long, long way off.

Meanwhile, questions of aid and sustainability aside, I stand in awe each day of these boys that (thanks to the sacrifices and funds of many families in the US, thanks to their own determination, and thanks to the love and conviction of Amanda) are making incredible strides towards turning their lives around. It is really amazing to watch them each day and to know bits and pieces of the harrowing stories that led them to the streets in the first place.

Jimmy, Richard, and Joseph sliding on the front porch during a rainstorm.

Each day the boys wake up and go to school (most of them are in fourth grade, and they continue to study though they are twice the size of most kids in their grade). The 5 boys that stay home are waiting to start breeding and selling chickens to raise money for themselves to get internships at garages to learn to become mechanics. While they wait for this project to get off the ground, Amanda and I homeschool them in reading, writing, and basic math. I’ve learned that I am a big fan of delegation and of others doing the heavy lifting (ie Amanda starting the home after I merely mentioned the country of Uganda to her), so it is a good chance for me to have to do the slow work of teaching these boys to read, when there is no one to delegate this task to. It is teaching me to foster a patience I did not know that I possessed, as I go over the same letters each day with the boys and delight in small victories, such as the long-awaited legibility of the lower case “f” after two weeks of it looking like an “s”. I hope this patience can stick with me for the long haul and spill over into many aspects of my life, and I can’t wait to watch these boys read (hopefully!) in the near future.

English class with the boys who are more advanced at reading/writing.

When the boys get home from school at around 4 a group of us heads to the netball court (a sport played mostly by women in Uganda that is like basketball, but you can’t move with the ball). I happened upon the court one day while out with the boys looking for chicken vendors and the women told me to come play. Since then I’ve been going regularly and several of the boys have started playing as well (breaking down their gender stereotypes slowly but surely!).

Playing netball with some of the boys from the home.

It is great to have found a space to share with Ugandan woman and watch them have fun and enjoy this life that otherwise seems so filled with arduous labor and second-class citizenship in a very sexist national landscape. This dynamic of sexism and male power exertion was demonstrated quite clearly the other day when the 35+ year old security guard at the netball court kicked us all out and refused to let us continue playing because the 15 year old girl he was hitting on at the court pulled her arm away from his grasp and told him not to touch her. His response to being “shamed” by her in public was to exert his power over all of us and kick us off of the court… And so it goes….

Netball court at a nearby school.

Each night Amanda, Uncle Steven (the amazingly patient Ugandan house uncle who runs the show here) and I run workshops and “devotions” with the boys. I am doing art-therapy type workshops, similar to those that I did in prison in El Salvador. This has been a fruitful space for discussion and self-expression thus far, though we are all pretty tired by this point of the day and some days we’d all just rather sleep!

More to come… thanks for reading!