Back To Life, Back To Reality

October 4, 2009

Volume 3, Issue 1

Back To Life, Back To Reality

Do you remember that old song “Back to life, back to reality”? In reality I am back in Uganda, but I am not quite back into the swing of life yet. It’s hard to believe that I am really here. I don’t feel anxious or overly stressed, and I even find some Lubwisi words and people’s names coming back to me. It’s almost as if I have never left, except so many things have somehow changed.

It has been 18 months since I left Bundibugyo. A lot of experiences, travels, and events have happened in my life during that time. And now, here I am, back in Uganda. Wow!

The power lines and the physical changes in the center of the village are shocking. So many trees have been cut to make way for the power line poles. The once quaint, small village of Nyahuka is now becoming a city – though it is has far to go to reach the status of metropolis. Electricity is a very recent development here, and very few homes and businesses have the finances and capability to be wired in. As more and more people obtain electricity the town will no doubt experience many changes.

The mission team is also different, though many of the people were here during my last adventure in Uganda. I look forward to meeting the people I don’t know and reconnecting with the ones I do. I am not quite sure of my role as part of the team and the community. Like previous time spent in Uganda, I imagine I will be helping in the pediatric ward and with the HIV/AIDS clinic. I desire to be an encourager and will try to help meet the needs of my neighbors, teammates, and friends.

It was such an unexplainable joy when I arrived in Bundibugyo yesterday. Many Ugandan people warmly greeted me, old friends and new. My heart almost burst with excitement as I ran to hug the children whom I have been thinking so often about over the past 18 months. When I saw some of my adult friends I almost wept with joy, as I have greatly longed to see those friends.

Amidst the abundant joy there was also sadness as I attended a burial just hours after I arrived. One of my former neighbors and friends, Chris, lost another one of his young sons due to illness. Chris has always been very kind to me, and his brother Vincent was one of my closest friends when I was last here. Chris has lost two children in the past 18 months; Ammon was just buried and his son Dan, who died only a few days after I left Uganda in 2008. Dan was a beautiful boy I grew to love and cherish. Death is very real here and many children have fallen prey to its grasp.

As I sat with Chris yesterday, I allowed myself to feel the emotion and pain of loss. I cried tears of sadness and tears of joy yesterday. There is a strange reality that comes with being back in Bundibugyo, seeing friends and children I love juxtaposed with the reality of the struggle for life and death. I guess I am back to life in Bundibugyo and paradox of realities that it brings.

My hope is that I can let myself enter into the grief and the joy. I do not want to shield my emotions, and I want to truly experience all of life. Life is good and bad, it is full of joy and suffering. I do not want to run from the grief and sorrow, only to embrace the joy and the happiness. They are both part of life, and hopefully by experiencing the sorrow it will only make the joy greater.