We’re a rag-tag group of people vigilantly pursuing self-sustaining educational & employment opportunities with and for students and their families living in rural communities in developing countries. We believe in asking hard questions like, “What do you need and how can we help?” We believe that communities know their needs better than we do and that it’s our job to listen. We’re big on being kind for the sake of kindness and we believe that even the smallest acts of kindness can make a big difference. We believe in keeping vigil over one another and watching for opportunities to help, no matter how far off the beaten path those opportunities take us. We’re vigilant in our belief that God has given each person unique gifts and that one of the highest forms of worship is using those gifts to serve others. We believe God has a purpose for each life and Vigilante Kindness is our purpose. Join us as we live out wild adventures in service of God and others. Join us in committing acts of Vigilante Kindness.
Last night my Facebook birthday fundraiser for Vigilante Kindness was fully funded!!! There was a mad rush of donations at the end to donate the last $20 that had me absolutely giggling with delight!
My sleep last night was restless because I couldn’t stop thinking about all of you, who you are, who I am, who we are as Vigilante Kindness.
I started writing out things that are true of you and I, what we do, things we love, what we’re going through, where we’ve been, and all the other things that make us who we are.
It leaves me full of love thinking about each of you and leaves me in wonder thinking of who we are collectively.
Thank you for choosing to be a part of our story.
I couldn’t love you more if I tried, so I made you a present, a story of who we are.
A few months before I returned to Uganda, Barb, the proprietor of Happy Go Smile, my favorite boutique in Cayucos, started participating in an Abandoned Art Project. The deal with abandoned art escapades is that you make a piece of art and abandon it somewhere for someone else to find and keep. I offered to take one of Barb’s pieces with me and abandon it in Gulu.
She gave me this heart piece to abandon. Since today is my 18th wedding anniversary, I decided today was the perfect day to abandon this heart piece and send some love to The Hubs on the other side of the world.
And I had the perfect co-conspirators to help me do it–Seddrick and Ivan, my two student artists.
After church we set off to Pece Stadium, a soccer stadium built as a War Memorial to honor the role Acolis had played in WW2.
The back wall of the stadium has a mural by Calvin to commemorate the end of the more recent war against Joseph Kony and the L.R.A.
This stadium, meant to be a symbol of peace, seemed like a perfect place to leave a little piece of love from California. Plus it’s right across from my hotel, so my plan was to inconspicuously watch to see who took the painting.
Ivan and Seddrick casually placed the painting on the stadium wall and then we watched and waited. Ivan and Seddrick eventually returned to their studio to work on their own paintings and I sat out on the patio casually waiting with my camera nearby.
Hundreds of people passed the painting without giving it a second glance. Even the cows didn’t seem to notice.
When Alvin, the son of one of the hotel employees showed up, I admit I lost focus. I love this kid. His giggle lights up my day. Alvin and I had some rousing games of Peek-a-Boo.
Then I taught him This Little Piggy on his toes, which he the proceeded to play on the toes of every adult not wearing closed toed shoes.
I looked up from our game of This Little Piggy and the painting was gone.
So to the person who found the abandoned art, I wish you lots of love today. To the Barb at Happy Go Smile and to Ivan and Seddrick, thanks for creating beautiful things. And to my husband, who has loved me with reckless abandon for all of these years, thanks for loving me and sending me out into the world with a heart that is full.
We walk through the dark streets of Gulu, letting the sounds of town fill in the silent spaces of our conversation. There aren’t many spaces to be filled and the lack of electricity means there are also fewer sounds of the town, only the hum of a handful of generators and throbbing dance music coming from a club a few streets away.
Our stomachs are full of pork and cassava from my mom’s going away dinner at a local pork joint called Alulululu. My mom called it Alulululululululululululululu and everyone at the table giggled because, as she said several times, all of her syllables are in the wrong places. There were six of us at dinner and in order to be heard over the din of the rain on the tin roof, we shouted most of the night.
Everyone else peeled off after dinner, riding bikes or bodas back home. This, this distilled quiet time, walking back to the hotel with Ivan is precious.
We recount the dinner conversations and pretend to speed skate home through the streets of town. In our minds we’re fantastic speedskaters. Power is scarce, so light is also scarce and nobody can see well enough to laugh at us. Ivan rarely gets to be a kid, so fake speedskating through town, laughing until our cheeks hurt and doing other goofy things is a necessary component in each piece of our time together.
He paints, well and constantly, to ensure that he and his sister get to go to school. He pays the rent for his studio and collects the rent from other artists sharing his space. Most nights he sleeps in the studio because he can’t afford the boda boda fare from his house to the studio. He keeps a rolled up mattress under the table and pulls it out each night to sleep amongst his paintings.
As we walk, he tells me the story of painting at the TAKS (Through Art Keep Smiling) Center. His face is all lit up as he fills in the details of getting to paint in public and getting to talk about what painting means to him. He painted a LOVE Africa piece and at the end of his time, he was offered a position helping teach Art Therapy.
He’s over the moon and I’m somewhere beyond that because he deserves to be a successful, working artist. He deserves to make a living. He deserves to have a bed, not a rolled up mattress under a table. He deserves an education. He deserves not to worry about his sister.
“I bought my sister a new dress with some of the money I got from the paintings you sold,” he smiles, his big toothy grin brilliantly visible in the inky night.
“From the fashion store you were telling me about?”
“Yes. Do you know why I bought her a dress?”
“Um, because you love her?” It’s obvious in everything Ivan does just how much he loves his sister.
“Because I love her and I want her to know she’s special. Just because we don’t have parents, I still want her to feel cared for. I don’t want her to think she has to go looking for that from guys and then get into trouble.”
Just when I think I can’t love this kid another drop more, he goes and buys a new dress for his sister and my heart shifts into overflow mode.
“You’re a great big brother, you know that?”
“Thanks,” he swallows hard. Compliments are difficult for him to accept and I make a note to speak them more often.
Ivan’s learning to skateboard and as our conversation ebbs and flows we fake skateboard down the last street. We practice all of our best fake tricks and in our minds we’re fantastic.
Getting water for the people of Te Okot is heavy on my mind every single second of every day and I’m excited to see how that progresses, but you should also know that the other Vigilante Kindness projects are gaining momentum. Today here’s a story of how I used Vigilante Kindness Work Study money to support Ivan, my young student artist who paints to pay for his school fees and for the fees of his sister.
“What is it?” Ivan looks over the long, black bag I’ve just handed him.
“Open it and see. It’s a gift from my Aunt Nancy, the artist.”
He opens the black bag and pulls out the metal pieces. Carefully he unfolds the tripod and stands the easel up, adjusting the legs so that it stands tall next to him.
“Thank you so much! It’s so nice!”
“And these are for you, too.” I hoist my shoulder bag, heavy with art supplies onto the table in his studio.
Ivan unpacks the brushes and charcoals and pastels and paper and blending tools and a host of other art supplies my aunt has sent me with. I don’t even know what half of them are or do, but Ivan does.<
His eyes well with tears. “Thank you for supporting me, Alicia. I don’t know how to repay you.”
“It wasn’t me. I’m just the messenger.”
“I don’t know how to repay your aunt. Maybe I’ll make her a painting?”
“I think that’s the perfect way to repay her. Let’s record a video message for her as well.” I smile at him. “Hey, Ivan, I was at school on Friday. Why weren’t you there? Were you sick?”
“No, I couldn’t pay my school fees, so they sent me home.”
“How much do you owe in school fees?” It’s a candid question and I feel glad that our relationship has earned me the right to ask and also given him the freedom to answer without shame.
“130,000 shillings.” $50.
I think of the Vigilante Kindness Work Study shillings in my wallet for kids who want to work to pay their school fees.
“I can help with that. Which of your paintings are for sale?”
He shows me and I pick out two for a total of 150,000 shillings. I don’t care to barter here, not with Ivan who paints to pay his school fees and the school fees of his sister, Lillian.
I stick around the art studio watching Ivan and his partner Calvin paint. I snap photos of their paintings and of the two of them at work.
Ivan shows me the set of paintings the hospital has commissioned him to paint to hang in the patient rooms. He tells me about how they hope to have an exhibition soon so that they can rent the back room of the art studio and begin using it as a gallery. Right now the door to the back room is locked.
Later that night, I post the photos on Facebook so that Ivan and Calvin can have some clear shots of their work. It’s hard to find a camera here, even harder to find a camera that takes clear shots. I post the photos with a note that the paintings are for sale. Within minutes of posting, the paintings begin selling to my friends and family at home. I go to bed dreaming of the locked door at the back of their studio and of the gallery room that waits behind it.
“Alicia, will you buy one of my paintings?” Ivan chuckles shyly. He laughs like the cartoon character Goofy and I giggle each time I hear his laugh. “I need to earn some money to buy school supplies and some more art supplies.”
I love this kid for wanting to earn money instead of asking for a handout.
Ivan is one of my favorite kids from this year. A few years ago Ivan and his younger sister were taken in by an American couple. Ivan didn’t have a father in his life and after a tragic accident his mother was left mentally disabled and unable to care for her children. She now lives in a care facility in another part of Uganda. Ivan calls the American couple his parents. When his parents had to return to the U.S., they left Ivan and his sister with a house to live in. His parents send money for the house, for bills, for food and for schooling. Ivan keeps a detailed account of the expenses and he reports it back to his parents every month. Any extra things Ivan needs, he pays for himself by selling paintings out of the art studio at his house. When Ivan and his sister finish school here, they will join their parents in the U.S., where Ivan hopes to attend a university and major in art.
“I’d love to buy a painting, Ivan. Do you have them here?” It matters little to me if his paintings are any good.
“No, but I’ll get them from town and show them to you. I’ve got four finished paintings, but I want to give one to the Vice President of our school when he visits.”
He brings the paintings to school and we go behind one of the classrooms where he lays them out on the ground. They’re good. I immediately know exactly which one I’m going to buy for myself. It’s a small painting of the word LOVE with Africa in place of the O.
LOVE by Leku Ivan
What Ivan doesn’t know is that I’m using Vigilante money to buy the other two remaining paintings.
I pick up the LOVE painting and the two other paintings. “I’ll buy these three, Ivan.”
“Three? Really?” His Goofy chuckle rolls up from his belly.
“Yes, three. How much do I pay?”
“Anything is fine.”
“Ivan, I want to support the work you’re doing as an artist. So think of a price that’s fair for both of us and that’s what I’ll pay.”
Ivan takes a few minutes to think. “Is 200,000 shillings okay?” I do some quick converting in my head. He’s asking for roughly eighty American dollars. I pull shillings out of my wallet for the smaller painting and use Vigilante shillings for the other two paintings. We shake hands and both of us leave feeling like we got the better deal.
In even more exciting news, after seeing my LOVE painting another friend in Africa is commissioning Ivan to paint a similar one for her. My sister is also going to help Ivan make and sell prints of his paintings. Again, one small act of Vigilante Kindness snowballed into something even greater.
When I bought Ivan’s other two paintings I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do with them. I just knew that I wanted to support Ivan and his budding art career. Later in my hotel room as I spread the paintings out on my bed, an idea came to me: I’d give them away to my fellow Vigilantes of Kindness. The only problem-and it’s an incredibly good problem-is that I only have two paintings and I’ve got way more than two Vigilante donors.
The two paintings up for grabs are the two closest to the love painting. One is a vertical tree painting. The other is a landscape with elephants in the foreground. I’ll take better photos when I get home.
So here’s how it’s going to work, for every dollar you donated, you’ll get a ticket in the drawing. So if you donated $20, you’ll have 20 tickets in the drawing. If you donated $200, then your name will be on 200 tickets and so forth. I’ll do the drawing on September 30th. That will give me time to take photos for making prints.
This is also good news for those of you who wanted to be Vigilantes of Kindness, but weren’t able to because you offered to donate when I was already making my way back home. You can make a donation and be entered in the drawing as well. (Message me for details on how to donate.) Any new donations will go toward my return trip next year and the Vigilante Acts of Kindness that are yet to come.
I’m absolutely giddy at the mere thought of returning to the land I love and exacting more kindness for the sake of being kind. I look at Ivan’s LOVE painting and wonder just what’s going to happen next in my love story-our love story-for Uganda.
My sleep last night was restless because I couldn’t stop thinking about all of you, who you are, who I am, who we are as Vigilante Kindness.
Vigilante Kindness 