Category: Other Stories from Uganda

A Room With A View

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Other Stories from Uganda4 Comments

I left CSI: Bathroom on the second day in Gulu, moving up two floors into the only other vacant room in the hotel.

This room isn’t perfect either, but I no longer fear that my shower is going to come alive at night or that the toilet is going to inflict a disease on me.

My sink doesn’t work, but at least the faucet is attached to the wall so that I hold out hope that it will work one of these days.  It makes a great bathroom storage area for flowery headbands and other bathroomly things.

There’s no electricity in my bathroom which is actually okay, because even the thought of makeup vanishes in the sweat that begins each morning and only ceases when I lay down on top of the cool sheet at night.

The other benefit of no electricity in the bathroom is that I can’t be bothered to even attempt to tame my curls, which have taken on a life, and perhaps a solar system, of their own.  From what I can see out of my peripheral vision, the force grows stronger with my hair every day.  Only time will tell if it remains fairly well-behaved or if it turns to the dark side.  I think it’s going to be the dark side because anytime one clearly sees their hair from the periphery, that hair is clearly up to no good.

But cold water, and on rare occasions even hot water, flows freely from the shower head and the toilet no longer causes me nightmares.

And check out my dresser/closet/pantry/medicine cabinet/table complete with chair.

Perhaps my favorite thing about my new room is the view.  I look out on Gulu now, out onto buildings under construction.  The rhythm of hammers is the heartbeat of a town rebuilding herself, one nail at a time.

From my window I see houses and huts side by side, the new and the old married here.

Gulu is up to become a city this year.  She would be the second official city in Uganda.  Gulu residents are excited at the prospect of more industry and municipalities that reach the outskirts of town.  They hope Gulu will become like Kampala, a polluted, crowded, noisy racket of a city.  I want what’s best for Gulu and I’m just not sure bigger is always better.  So for now, I’ll relish the clink of hammers and enjoy my view of small, kindhearted Gulu.

Finding Beauty. Ahem.

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Other Stories from Uganda3 Comments

This was my hotel room in Entebbe where I spent my first night in Africa.  It was a lovely room with a bed I sank into before falling asleep to the sounds of Africa outside my window and the hum of the fan cutting through the humid air.  It’s fitting that I was in Suite 16.  It just sounds right, doesn’t it?  After two days of traveling, I took great delight in this oasis.  In the morning I had a hot shower and enjoyed a breakfast cooked just for me.  It was a shame I’d only be spending the one night there and another night upon my return to the airport at the end of the month.

In Gulu, I expected my room to be the same caliber.  Here’s a shot of my toilet in Gulu.

Gah!

I’m sorry I didn’t mean to frighten you.  Quick, try to think of pretty flowers or cute bunnies or something.  Try not to think about how my toilet looks like a crime scene.

While staying here, I’ve been thinking a lot about Ryan and his lotus tattoo.  Part of the adventure is finding beauty in unexpected places, right?  Right???

So the beauty of this toilet is that it flushes and because I’m a girl I don’t actually face the horror of the back of the toilet when I squat to do my business.

You looked at the toilet picture again, didn’t you?  Sorry.

Let me replace it with a different image.  Here’s my “shower”.  I say shower because the shower nozzle doesn’t work, meaning I get to stand in the bucket and splash water on my dirty bits while dunking my head under the faucet.  The beauty in this is that the hot water tap is a ruse and there is only cold water here, so really I wouldn’t have wanted to actually stand under a freezing cold shower anyway, right?  Since the sink doesn’t work, the shower is technically my sink, too, meaning I can save time by taking care of all of my showering, sink and toilet needs at the same time.  And who doesn’t like to save a little time now and then?

What you can’t tell from the picture is that several times a night the shower faucet spontaneously fires massive amounts of water into the tub below with such force that the first night it woke me from a dead sleep.  The beauty in that situation is that the first time it happened, I’d just recently used my CSI toilet so I didn’t pee my sheets.

This is the sleeping part of  my room.  Note the pristine mosquito net.  It was part of an end of the year gift from one of my students.  The net that previously covered my bed was riddled with holes which is actually counter productive when it comes to mosquito nets because it only serves to trap them inside the net instead of keeping them out.  So the beauty in this is that I now get to tell my former student just how much I appreciated her thoughtful gift.

But wait, the beauty of this room doesn’t end there.  Check out my view.  Breathtaking in a sort of gasping for air kind of way, no?  Note the lack of screen on the window, meaning that when I can’t possibly take the humid air a second longer and have to open the window, I get to study a variety of insects from inside the safety of my mosquito net.  I do love a good entomology lesson.  I don’t even want to think about what the bars are for.  No, I don’t know what that stain on the window is and, yes, people walk by my window and say hello.  Hang on a sec, I’m going to go look at my toilet to make myself feel better about my window.

Okay, where was I?  Ah yes, my window.  What you can’t tell from the picture is that there’s a club right down the road that plays loud American music until the wee hours of the morning.  So when I wake up and feel homesick, I get an earful of Kelly Clarkson or Usher.  The beautiful thing about that is that I brought lots and lots of earplugs.

From my quick peek into Colin’s room, it appears that my room is the anomaly, the neglected step child of the hotel.  So that’s good.  Except for the ‘my room’ part.

I still think Lotus Ryan is right about the importance of finding beauty in unexpected places.  For the next few weeks, I’m just going to have to look hard to find it in this particular room.

An addendum to the finding beauty in unexpected places thing is that I’m also going to do a better job of appreciating beauty, even when it’s expected.  When I again cross through the doorway of beautiful Suite 16 back in Entebbe, my appreciation for the bed, the heated shower, the screened windows and the toilet will have increased tenfold.

An addendum to the addendum, the next day I was able to move to a different room and found all sorts of beauty.  Behold my toilet. I almost kissed it.  Until I saw a cockroach crawl out of it.  The beauty in that is that the cockroach didn’t crawl out of it whilst I was using my brand new throne.

The Lotus

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Other Stories from Uganda1 Comment

On my flight from Brussels to Entebbe, Uganda I had Santa sitting behind me and across the aisle from me was a college-aged kid with ‘Hello, Sailor’ tattooed on his leg.  The kid with the tat is Ryan.  Ryan has a mother who worries and is going to use up of all 50 of the monthly international texts he purchased in the span of a few days.

In the Fall Ryan’s entering med school to study pediatrics, oncology or global health issues.  He’s not sure if he’s got the chops to be a global heath doctor and so he’s doing a little bit of a test run this summer working in Southern Uganda to help establish better malaria protocols and treatment options.

As it turns out that his cheeky ‘Hello, Sailor’ tattoo is a tribute to his family’s long lineage in the Navy and that tattoo is for his sister who is currently deployed.

Ryan has another tattoo on the underside of his wrist.  It’s a small lotus, the symbol of finding beauty in unexpected places.

I wish I could text Ryan’s mom and tell her not to worry.  She can worry about his time in Uganda all she wants because that’s definitely a legitimate worry, but I wish I could tell her not to worry about Ryan in general because she has a son who wants to make the world a better place.  She has a son who looks for beauty in unexpected places like malaria-infested Uganda.

I think Ryan’s right, beauty often lies in unexpected places.  For me that unexpected place was across the plane aisle in the eyes of a kid eager to see the world and to find a way to make it better.

Conversations with Christine

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Other Stories from Uganda3 Comments

My streak for meeting amazing people en route to Uganda continued on my flight from Washington DC to Brussels where I had the pleasure of meeting Christine, a Congolese kidney doctor who has made the United States her home for over 20 years.  Christine is amazing in a lot of ways.  For example, she speaks multiple languages.  She’s also an equestrian with a soft spot for her horse, AJ.  Her job allows her to travel the US filling in for various kidney doctors when they go on vacation.

Oh, and here’s a big one, for the past decade or so she’s been working on establishing a kidney transplant and dialysis center in Kenshasa, her hometown in the Congo.  She spends her days pouring her time, money, heart and everything else she has into providing care for those in need.  This means doing things like hauling equipment instead of clothing in her luggage.  It means translating protocol and training nurses.  For Christine, it also meant giving up her crowning jewel, giving up her private practice in the States in order to devote more time to her bigger calling.

I can’t fathom the faith it took to make a leap like that.  And yet, when Christine and I found ourselves sandwiched together in the middlest seats in the middle row, Christine talked about how she struggles with letting go of control and turning things over to God.

Boy, there’s nothing like having someone hold a mirror to your face on a transatlantic flight where there’s nothing but time, recycled air and plenty of leg room.  Wait, that last one was just wishful thinking.

I could so relate to Christine and her fear of letting God take the wheel.  It’s a fear I face down all the time.  My own hubris wins out far more than I care to admit.  I told Christine about how God has been sending me some unlikely messengers as of late to convey that he’s in the broad strokes and in the finest details as well.  I told her about D’s words and about Santa’s gift and about how since I decided to listen to God for once and go to Africa to write with kids, God is proving his steadfastness in my life in wild ways.

There was a time in my life when prayer was just natural conversations with God, when praying was like filling my best friend in on the details of my life.  Somewhere in the last few years, my prayer life has waned into a list of gratitude or a list of wants.  Hear me out, both of those have their place.  The Bible says a thankful heart prepares the way for God and that we’re to ask for the desires of our hearts, but somehow the part where I just talked to God got lost.

Planning and taking this trip to Uganda has forced me to be real with God, to lay down the platitudes.  This isn’t easy for me because often times it means admitting weakness where I want to portray strength.  From small things like admitting I was nervous about taking photos for the book I’ll be writing with the kids to bigger things like being lonely, I’ve been laying it all out on the table.

And then trying hard to listen.

I’m not one who hears an audible voice of God, although I firmly believe that if I did, He would sound like James Earl Jones.

Instead God speaks to me most often through the actions of other people.  When I admitted I was uncertain about doing the writing and photography part of the book, Colin a teacher from Oklahoma City, who also happens to be a photographer, signed up to volunteer at the school, too.  When I told him about the book I want to write with the students, he jumped in with both feet to help with the photography side.

When I left my house at 3am and began the two and a half hour drive to the airport that began this wild journey, loneliness and homesickness settled like stones in my stomach.  For the first half hour of the drive, I didn’t see a single car or even a semi truck heading either direction on the interstate.  All was quiet and dark and even a happy playlist couldn’t help me from thinking about turning back around at every exit and speeding back to my warm bed to curl into the crook of Terry’s arms.  At 3:45am my phone rang.  It was That Laura, awake and itching courtesy of a nasty case of poison oak.  We chatted about regular old life stuff and the next thing I knew I was pulling into long-term parking at the airport.

When I boarded the plane from DC to Brussels and settled in next to Christine, I realized that I’m not alone in struggling with letting go.  I’m not alone in feeling nervous or lonely at times.  Time and again on this trip, God is making sure I know I’m not alone.  So now I’m starting to think that the voice of God isn’t that of James Earl Jones.  Maybe I hear God best when he talks to me through the chipper voice of a faithful friend calling.  I’m even beginning to think that the voice of God may even have a Congolese accent.

I guess the point is to keep listening because God speaks in surprising ways.  For me the point may be to keep listening because God speaks.  Period.

Traveling with Santa

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Other Stories from Uganda4 Comments

I was once offered a job on an airplane, salary offers scribbled on the backs of airline napkins and everything.

I also once held airline sickness bags to the mouth of a college student who had the misfortune of getting his wisdom teeth removed the day before flying back to school on the East Coast.

When I began my flight from Sacramento to Washington, DC, en route to Uganda, I wondered where Scott, the feed farmer, would fall on my best to worst plane companions scale.

Scott was on his way to a church leadership conference in Canada and had a stack of paperwork at least 4 inches thick that he was to read over before the conference.  Poor guy.

We began chatting across the mercifully vacant seat between us and Scott regaled me with tales a unique employee named Rambo.  However he solidified his spot in the number 2 ranking of favorite plane companions when he told me a tale of the last church leadership conference that ended with one of his conference colleagues riding in an open trunk, blowing cigar smoke at the cars behind them.  Good stuff, but alas Scott had his silver medal ranking taken away by a force of nature so magical that it can only be explained in two words:

Santa Claus.

I swore Santa Claus had just walked past me and into the lavatory.  He wore a red shirt, a snowy white beard, and glasses perched on his nose revealing his twinkling blue eyes.  The only things missing were his sack of toys and a reindeer or two.

I stopped him on his way back to his seat and asked if I could take his picture.  He smiled and obliged, almost giving a ‘Ho Ho Ho’ kind of chuckle.

“My littlest nephews are not going to believe that I was on a plane with Santa!  One of them was just wondering last Christmas where Santa goes on vacation.”  I could barely contain my glee as I snapped his photo.  And then Santa did a very cool thing.  He gave me his business card with his secret identity so I could show it to my nephews.  As it turns out, in his off-season, Santa is known as Marty the missionary and he was headed to Africa that day.

Marty, er, Santa, boys and girls, I mean Santa, entertained Scott and I with tales of Santahood including the gut wrenching story of a little boy who climbed atop his lap and asked for his mother’s cancer to be taken away.  Santa also told us a hilarious story about another boy who was being a holy terror in the seat of his haggard mother’s shopping cart.  Santa leaned down into this boy’s face, squared him with a serious look over the rims of his glasses and said, “You know who I am, right?”  The little boy nodded, mouth agape.  “Then you be good to your mother and listen to her.”  The boy nodded again and sat quietly in the cart.  The mother sighed with relief and on a subsequent aisle asked Mrs. Claus to thank Mr. Claus for his help.

Santa gave me a gift on that flight to DC.  You heard me right, I got a gift from Santa and it wasn’t even close to Christmas.  I know, I know, try to contain your jealousy.  After all, you don’t want to be on the naughty list.

The gift Santa gave me was a Rubik’s cube sort of toy that unfolds and refolds to tell the story of the life of Christ.  Now this cube isn’t really my style for sharing my faith, but it was a sweet act of kindness on Santa’s part.

When the flight landed, Scott and I parted ways.  I wished him a fun-filled conference and, fingers crossed, a story or two that might land him in the trunk.  He wished me the best on my work with the students in Uganda.  Then came time to bid Santa ado.  We said our goodbyes and Santa in all earnesty, with his mouth drawn up like a bow, told us he loved us.  I smiled because his authentic love for people couldn’t have been more evident.

You can imagine my delight when I discovered that Santa was on my flight from DC to Brussels and then seated right behind me on my flight from Brussels into Africa.  All day long Santa told me tales of the lovely Mrs. Claus including how much he’d missed her these last two years since her passing.  I saw photos of Santa’s seven children and his grandchildren.  Santa even confessed to wearing only red shirts.

As I said, the Jesus Rubik’s cube isn’t my style of sharing my faith.  Surely, I’d miss a fold or a turn and leave poor Jesus stranded in the tomb or something.  But I’m keeping the cube as a memento because each time during my trip when a pang of homesickness would seize my stomach or a shadow of doubt about this harebrained idea to write alongside kids in Africa would sweep across my mind, Santa was there with a word of encouragement or a kind gesture.

I know people who travel with images of saints to watch over them.  I don’t believe in the deity of saints, but I can’t help but laugh at God’s sense of humor for sending Saint Nicholas to watch over me as I traveled across the world, alone but never lonely.

Needless to say, Santa parked his sleigh firmly in the number 1 spot on my list of all time favorite plane companions.  Marty Santa spends his days comforting children in need, redirecting them when the opportunity allows and even reassuring big kids like me that God shows up in magical ways even when the calendar doesn’t read December 25th.