From Uganda to America, Step One

Lillian, Innocent, Ronald, and Pepito pose for a picture before dinner on their last night in Uganda

40,000 years of American history explained in 30 minutes.  Impossible?  Yes.  We gave it our all, but when everything was said and done, it took us almost an hour.  :)

When you have myriad topics to explain to 16 Ugandans about to head to the US for three months, and when the majority of those Ugandans have never left Africa before, let alone flown on a plane, something that at its conception seemed like an easy few days of cultural training turns into a herculean exercise in patience and endurance.  How do you prepare someone to navigate the murky cultural waters of the Land of the Free?  Thanks to our diversity, there are so many implied whispers, so many subtle subtexts, underpinning the tangle of American behavior and philosophy.  One thing no one ever boasts about when they rave about The Melting Pot is the type of gunk that has accumulated around the rim of the thing, the residue of centuries of cultural fusion.  Where do you even begin to describe the most diverse country on Earth?

I don’t know, but I can tell you where we did start with the Ugandan advocates:  culture shock.  From there, we branched out into American food and restaurant culture (“Why do I have to pay the tip?  Why can’t the restaurant owner pay the waiter’s salary?”); clothing (“Scarves?  Do they sell those things in Kampala?”); gender roles (Do all husbands in America help with cleaning the dishes?”); sexuality (“Is it OK to ask a man if he is gay as soon as I meet him?” and “Can gay people, too, have children in America?”); travel (“Does the plane tilt at a very sharp angle when it takes off, or does it stay flat as it ascends?”); consumerism (“Why do people buy new clothes even when they don’t need them?”).  For days, we talked and talked, cutting through topic after topic, trying all along the way to avoid committing the pedagogical sin of generalizing.

*****

Two bare bulbs hung in the hotel corridor, a pair of tiny electrical suns casting shadows on the grass lawn around us.  The thump thump thump of a Ugandan club hit cluttered the quiet night from a noisy bar nearby.  Buzzed on a potent mix of exhaustion and excitement, three Ugandan advocates—all IC staff members—loitered outside their hotel rooms, leaning against the hallway walls.

Christo, the Head Engineer for Schools for Schools, saw me approach and reached out to shake my hand, pulling me in for a hug.

“Man, I’m so excited.  I don’t want to sleep tonight.  I wish tomorrow was here now.  I want to fly tonight!” he said.

Leo, one of the Lead Mentors for our Visible Child Scholarship Program (VCSP), nodded in agreement.  “I know, me too.  I’m ready to go now.  I don’t want to wait until tomorrow night to leave.”

I couldn’t hold back.  I let a wide, goofy grin stretch across my face.  Their excitement was palpable; each of them wore it like a cape and fidgeted under the itch of it, trying to get comfortable.

“I’m so excited for you guys,” I confessed.  “This is really happening!  Tomorrow’s the big day.  This is your last night in Uganda!”

Geoffrey, our Program Manager for VCSP, smiled, incredulous.  “It’s real now.  I can’t believe it’s real now.  It finally feels like it’s really happening.”

*****

The next day, after one last dinner with friends and family at a Kampala pizza joint, we waved good-bye to a bus full of cheering Ugandans.  As they drove off into the hazy Kampala dusk, arms dangling from bus windows like wiggling tentacles, I couldn’t help but think of the conversation I had with the guys the night before.

This is really happening.  It’s real now.

–Andrew

The group right before they boarded the bus to head to the airport