A Bit of Buyer's Remorse

Happy Easter Monday Everybody! Today is a national holiday here in Uganda! In addition to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Easter Monday is officially a government holiday where people are not required to work and most people are still spending time in the village with family. The city has felt very quiet all weekend which I assume is because so many people have gone out to be with their families to celebrate in the village. Even church on Sunday did not seem as full as previous weeks! 

By the way, the messages have been really great at church, Worship Harvest. They seem to be relevant to everyday life and are delivered in a very energetic way. There might not be a choir of over 100 people like there is at Watoto, but the dozen or so musicians and singers really know how to sing and DANCE! If you know me well, I am not always the one to be first on the dance floor or move around. When it comes to worship, I love singing and maybe a little moving around but I just can't seem to move my body in a fluid and natural way to the beat of any song the way that pretty much every Ugandan I meet can. There is one Mzungu singer in the choir. (if you haven't learned before, this is the word meaning "white person" or "foreigner" and is how many people on the street call out to us non-Ugandans who are lacking a bit of skin pigmentation) She has a lovely voice but she always looks out of place when she is with the group. She moves around and dances a bit while she sings but her movements just don't appear natural. Whenever I see her, I am reminded of what I must look like and become a bit more self-conscious about how I am moving during the songs. Then I remind myself that it doesn't matter if I look like a fool or not. God just loves it when we have genuine and heartfelt worship, whether it is song, prayer, or crazy dancing. 

I just thought I should share one part of the message on Sunday that stuck out the most to me. Let's be honest, it's pretty amazing to celebrate the great sacrifice that was made so all of us could live so Easter Sunday is automatically expected to have a good message. The main reading was from John talking about finding Jesus' tomb empty. I don't ever remember this one detail about Peter and another disciple  both were running to the tomb and the other disciple arrived first. He stopped outside and stooped down to look inside to find the tomb empty but the linens remaining. Peter then arrived and went inside the tomb and examined the linens and wrappings. Later the other disciple entered in and examined for himself and then he believed. So many times God calls us to something and we stand on the outside peering in to see what we can see instead of entering in all the way to experience the thing that we were called to do. 

At this point in the sermon, I stopped to re-examine what in the world I am doing here. I think that nearly every trip I have taken I try to fully immerse myself in the people and places while I am here. This trip, though, I sometimes find myself stopping short and not fully engaging. I don't think it is on purpose, but rather that it hurts when I actually step all the way into things. Whether it is not wanting to fully focus on one patient because that makes the disease hit harder and feel more real to me, trying not to stop for every person that calls mzungu on the street to talk to me because that means I actually have to listen and learn about them and their story is likely hard to hear. It's easy to try and justify NOT fully stepping in because it is too hard, but that doesn't mean it's right. It's not that I am always this way, but sometimes I realize that I could have done more or done things differently and the outcome might have been a little different or at least I would have felt more strongly about what happens. I want to be sure that I am fully engaging, fully entering in, and fully experiencing what it is I am meant to do here. 

I think about something my mom did on Sunday. There was a woman walking behind us on our 1.5 mile walk to church. After a little while, she started talking to my mom and in her true character, my mom asked her all kinds of questions and learned a lot about her. She even invited her to come to church with us and the woman decided to come and sit with us, even though she had been planning to go to some other church. Who knows what the plan was with this woman, but she ended up being very thankful to come with us and it seemed like my mom had made a new friend. I used to be a lot more like that here and still do talk to a lot of strangers, but I am a lot more weary. After dozens of interactions that ended with "can I get your contact?"(and then they call multiple times daily until you leave the country) or "so I really need a sponsor for school fees, can you help me" or simply, "Mzungu you give me money", I just tend not to engage in as many of those random conversations anymore. I have to remember, though, that not every such random meeting on the street is random and there is often a purpose in meeting a stranger. 

Okay, that was a little off the topic of the title of today's post title, but maybe I went on the rant because I just feel a little bad that the only activity I really did today was shop. We decided to dedicate one day to shopping at the craft markets to get all the gifts and souvenirs we wanted so that we wouldn't have to go back and that we could then move on and focus on the projects the rest of the time here. The problem with this strategy is that I spent more money during today's excursion buying things I don't REALLY need, but liked a lot, than I usually spend every 3 weeks since I have been here. In reality, it isn't that much money, but it feels like a ton. For every 100,000 shillings, I am spending around $40 and the most expensive single I bought was a beautiful painting of an elephant for 80,000, so $32. 

I also spend a fairly large amount of shillings on fabric with the intention of making a quilt and some other projects at home. The first week I was here I went with a friend to pick some other things from downtown and we had looked briefly at the fabrics but I decided to wait for Pamela and my mom before I made a purchase. The problem is, it's not always easy to find the places again because downtown there are tightly packed streets with narrow walkways and they all start to look the same. This was the third attempt for me to find the street with all the fabric on it and I finally found it with a little help from our cab driver, Joseph. I knew that it was across from where the food market is and a short walk from the taxi park (a huge parking lot with hundreds of mtatus jammed in waiting to go all over the city and the country) and that there is one yellow arched sign. The details clearly are not that helpful, and the other times we went we were walking and it is harder to pay attention when you are just trying to put one foot in front of the other without knocking into people or things. Riding in the car, I was able to pick out the details of the street and found the right one on the first try! It's easy to know it is the right place because the same items tend to all be sold on the same road. If you are looking for a computer, you just need to find one shop and alongside it will be 20 others. If you see a sign for paint, the entire street will be shops selling it. It's easy when you find the right stuff, but if you are looking for fabric and all you find are floor tiles and building supplies, it can be frustrating.

This third attempt I was finally able to find the right street. I saw a guy using a sewing machine outside of building and then one shop selling textiles and I knew all the rest would be the same. We took one little detour, but after that I remembered the spot I was looking for and found the exact woman's shop that I wanted. I had purchased fabric for curtains a few years ago from the same lady and I knew she always has a good selection of the types I like and I remembered her prices were fair. After she spent over 30 minutes climbing over fabrics and pulling down dozens of different prints as my mom and I tried to put together complementary patterns, I was finally satisfied with my collection. I thought I was buying a lot of really expensive things because the amount of shillings I handed her seems outrageous. Then Pamela announced that she did the math and what we got was about $2.50 per yard, which is significantly less than most similar fabric you can buy at home. It was a success!

The rest of the day was spent walking around so many little shops that I couldn't even give you an accurate count. All of them sell similar, but slightly different things and, as with most markets, the prices are never the same and are always negotiable so if you have the time you can look around until you find exactly the thing you want at a price that is what you want to pay. It's a lot of asking, "how much is it" and then, "will you give it to me for, XX?" and then back and forth with questions of price. The whole process of bartering is tiresome, though, and at the end of a day like that I just want to go to a quiet place and not ask or answer a single question more, even if it is something as simple as, "what do you want to drink?". 

By the time you go through so many shops and see the same things over and over again, it all starts to look like the same old stuff. So I could go on and on about stories from the market and all the crap, I mean, craft market things that I bought and was pretty happy with, but I think I do feel a little bad about it, still. I mean, in total, I spend probably around $175, with the majority of that on fabric and my special elephant painting which is relatively not that much if I were shopping back home. However, when I am here and have been spending so little on things to take home and have been so focused on the people here, it feels like a spent a small fortune. Although I like the things I got - like some sweet sandals, an elephant with crazy eyes, and a pretty bag, plus lots of random gifts that I can't wait to give to the people I got them for, I don't really need any of them. I will say, that when I get home and wear them and use them, I am reminded of this country, of these people, and of the memories here. It's not like I need the things to remember because so many of the moments I remember are engrained in my mind, but sometimes I like that my living room makes me feel a little like I am in Uganda or that when I wear certain items, they become a conversation starter about this place that I love. 

For tonight, I will feel a little buyer's remorse for doing nothing but shopping, but will try to remember that it's not like this always. After today, there will be a lot more of visiting orphanages and giving them things they need and sharing life with them. Hopefully there will also be a lot more stepping into every interaction and not examining from outside.