African Muzungu

She was sitting up when I arrived, allowing the nurses to redress her gauze. Her back was covered in white and red splotchy skin instead of the familiar chocolate color. Skin that was blistering 2 days ago has now peeled off leaving her covered in raw flesh. Her legs shook with the unbearable pain, and in my heart I pleaded with the Lord to give us both strength. The smell of her flesh, the flies seeking entrance into her net, and even the charred flesh of her face made me grateful I hadn't eaten yet. Several times my stomach protested and I quickly begged the Lord to calm my stomach and my spirit. When the nurses were finished, I sat down on the cot next to hers and told her stories. Her days are filled with pain and boredom, and I yearned to relive even a bit of her suffering. As I prayed over her before I left, she begged me not to disappoint her and to come again tomorrow. Lord willing, I will. Isaiah 61:1-3 says: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord ha...

This morning I went back to the hospital to see Liz. My wonderful language helper and friend, Margaret, went with me so that she could translate for Liz's auntie. We were warmly welcomed by Liz and her aunt, whose name used to be Margaret also, but recently converted to Islam and has changed her name to Aisha. As I talked with Liz, I was confounded by her level of comprehension and alertness in spite of the overwhelming burns covering most of her body. She told me how disgusted she was with the media coverage of her situation, as she said most of them were just looking for a story and most of it was lies. I asked her if she could tell me her story, and she said she would be glad to, but later in private without all the people around. As I listened to her and asked questions, I kept trying to imagine and understand the amount of humiliation, frustration, pain, and suffering I would endure if I was in her situation, and my body ached with the realization of her pain. I really don...

Today, I asked Sharon to tell me stories in Luganda. We've been doing it for a couple of weeks now: she'll say a sentence and I'll translate into English until we've completed the whole narrative. Today I asked her if she had any story, and after thinking a bit, she said yes. She told me the story of Liz, a girl who goes to her university. Liz is in her first year at Uganda Christian University, and was dating a guy who was going to the Islamic University here in Mbale. On Tuesday, her boyfriend came and told her that they should stop living together and take a break from the relationship until they had both finished their studies. Liz must have been heartbroken to an incredible degree. Upon reaching home that night, she decided life wasn't worth living anymore and covered herself in kerosene. I really can't imagine the depression and pain that convinced her to light that match and set herself on fire. Miraculously, she survived and was taken to Mbale hospital ...

I was an Awana kid. I loved it, and still love what I learned because of it, and if you asked me the question "what is love," I would probably answer, "God." Because of the verse in 1 John 4:8. A much more difficult question is "What is being loving?" Or in other words, "What action best demonstrates love to the other person?" While I was in the States I pondered over this question in relation to many circumstances, but I have found that living in a different culture only magnifies the difficulty of answering that question tenfold. Case in point: the piki men. or just men in general here. Because of my brightly colored skin and the imagined bulge in my pocket, hardly a single man in Uganda wouldn't want to be my boyfriend or husband. Add to that the fact that I naturally tend to smile, laugh, and in general be overly friendly, and I haven't been able to convince them to look elsewhere. While their frequent marriage proposa...