Letter Home

My life in Uganda- letter to friends and family.

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy Halloween! Oli otya? (Luganda greeting) How are you all? Thank you to all of you who have sent me little electronic notes over the past few months. My love of relationships has only grown since coming to Africa. Perhaps it is because, as a Rwandan man told me the other day, Africa is the birthplace of solidarity. Even with an ever-busy life, I cherish every piece of news sent from friends home and friends here in Africa. After all, at the end of the day, I know that my friends and family are my greatest treasures. I
I have been traveling now for three months! Where has the time gone? I have had a marvelous adventure and I am glad now for the opportunity to share some of my reflections with you. My trip was so far been laden with difficulties and triumphs. My first five weeks were spent in South Africa divided between Johannesburg and Cape Town. At first, I had a small amount of adjustment as I prepared myself for this whole year ahead of me. Living in what is said to be one of the most developed country in Africa, I encountered face to face to the history of colonialism and racial oppression. While in South Africa, I hiked mountains, attended museums, researched missiology in the church, and had the chance to witness my friends Bruce Botha SJ and Shaun Carls SJ be ordained to the priesthood.
Since arriving in Uganda, I have had a voracious appetite for my research here. Moving out of South Africa into a truly developing country, I have had to deal with a whole different set of adjustments. It certainly has been interesting dealing with this combination of rural and urban life. Who knew that living in the capital city, I would be waking up to roosters every morning. I have also had to confront/adjust to new culture of waste here. With no alternative, garbage is littered and strewn about. Roads are also in such conditions that Ministers of Parliament are demanding 4WD just to drive in the city. Corruption in all levels of the government taints such requests however. Reflections on those issues would take many more pages however.
When I am in Kampala, I am living at a guesthouse run by nuns, hanging out with Jesuits and meeting with other priests and religious on a daily basis. It seems I have had my fill of religious here. I am living on catholic hill, so abundant resources surround me for my research. My initial Jesuit contacts have proved to be quite useful in dealing with practical questions of living in Uganda. Regarding my research, I was quite fortunate in my first week to meet with a priest named Fr. Waliggo who has written extensively on the topic of Inculturation as liberation. After my initial frustrations in South Africa, my first meeting with him was exactly what I needed. Indeed, this man articulated exactly the sentiments that I was feeling towards the process of inculturating the faith. This man helped me to develop a broader understanding for the necessity of this process of developing Christianity in Uganda. He also made me realize the imperative of Inculturation as he related to me the dilemma of identity for the African Christian, living with a foot in both the traditional world and the Christian world. He helped me to see the necessity of inculturation in enabling Christians to use their own traditional resources to deal with conflict, poverty, corruption and all other anti-life forces. The driving force behind my passion for inculturation was renewed and emboldened. He also gave me the contacts for quite a few other theologians here in Uganda who I have visited and interviewed.
Through my conversations with this compassionate people working on the ground for the betterment of people lives here, my awareness of the meeting of culture and faith have grown far beyond my original interest in liturgy. I have seen how the church has a necessity to address other issues outside of what might traditional be considered as a part of church culture. I have had a chance to explore issues of healing and the church as well as traditional means of dealing with conflict and resolution. I have seen how this issue of making an authentic faith touches on issues that we have long ago compartmentalized outside of religion. I have also seen how the church has the opportunity to be the locus for true healthy meeting between cultures. If religion won’t uphold people’s inherent dignity and identity, what use is it to anyone but the oppressor? Indeed, I have also seen how the churches of history and of present have been tools of cultural oppression. In many respects, the work that needs to be done now is backtracking the work of the early missionaries, who came with all of the assumptions of superiority of Western Europe as well as working against the current surges of consumer Christianity coming from the states.
Somehow the problems of the past find resurrection in the present as well. Living in Uganda, I have had to confront many issues of injustice that are the products of neocolonialism. I don’t want to get into to many details, as I can see that I am already writing beyond the prescribed limit, but I have faced with disgust the damage that a consumer Christianity being exported from the states is doing here in Africa. A profit driven hypocritical Christian has come to Uganda and spread like bush fire. Offering desperate people the promise of material acquisition and prosperity, it feeds them lies as it steals their assets. I have seen how the erosion of traditional values and their replacement with the values of materialism and individualism have plagued society here. It is difficult for someone from the states to live here and not think critically about their own culture. I have also had to confront the terrible identity issues left over from colonialism, where many young east Africans hold the belief that anything that is Mzungu (white) is somehow better. These experiences have only further increased my commitment to inculturation as liberation, enabling people through an affirmation of their dignity as an African. Indeed, I have been helped to see that the Christian tradition as a church of remembering, must include into this a remembrance of all the atrocities afflicted against the dignity of the human person here in Africa. Using this act of remembering as a departing point, a true theology that has meaning to a people in their culture and their context can be realized.
I have learned a new way of being a theologian. If theology is going to have meaning here in Africa, it has to take into account not only the culture of people, but also their very situation of suffering and poverty. The cries of the poor become a new form of theology so to speak. Even as I write this, however, I become ever more convinced that this context is where my research needs to take me next. I have spent too long now in the company of priests, nuns and theologians. I need to more fully immerse myself in the lives of those most vulnerable around me. I have already begun in some respects to become more intimate with these voices as I have begun volunteering as a teacher for refugee children and as I have exposed myself various different service organizations in the area, but it is clear to me that I have a longer journey ahead of me.
As to a typical day, it seems that in Uganda the only regularity I have had are the meals. Even these vary from the relative luxury of 3 square meals of matoke (a type of banana) and rice a day with the nuns at the guesthouse to boiled beef in some small run down shack next to a taxi park. A priest in Ft. Portal has told me that I have a missionary stomach. I seem to like almost everything that is put in front of me. I draw the line at hard-boiled eggs though. I feel like I have become a part of the family, living here at the Moroto diocese guesthouse and with four nuns looking after me I sometimes feel as if I have four moms here in Uganda.
I’ve been fortunate to have a number of experiences that have pushed the envelope for me. I spent one full day visiting three different prisons. I did not come here as a missionary and I try to explain that on a regular basis to those Christians in Uganda who I meet. I was, however, asked to give a few words of encouragement to the prisoners who we visited. What I thought would be a small greeting turned into a 25 minute sermon to over 50 prisoners on human dignity, Social justice, Christ’s presence amongst them in prisons, their ability to be agents of peace and to be witnesses against the oppression they have lived around both outside and in prison and of course, the beauty and value of African culture. The officers at one prison were so happy to hear my message that they actually invited me to go to 7 other prisons in the Jinja area. I tell you, this wasn’t my intention, but after having the effects of neo-colonialism and poverty in my face for the past two months, I had a bone to pick and I used this “sermon” as the means of communicating it. I was happy to see that my words had some meaning to the prisons I was speaking to as they nodded their heads or approached me afterwards.
I have really found some iron in my system that I didn’t know was there. I have always been a little squeamish on money issues. Here one has to be bold and frank, if they aren’t going to be cheated. I have done a good job of knowing what a fair (not cheap) price is and being sure to negotiate until I can get. Everything is of course marked up because of the color of my skin. What becomes more difficult is when one is confronted with this perception of whiteness and vast wealth outside the confines of the marketplace and in the area of relationships. It was difficult for me at first knowing how to gracefully deal with these issues since indeed so many organizations did need help, but I have since become quite skilled at discerning when and where I can do the most good with my skills and money
I have made sure these past two weeks to see more of Uganda than that of Kampala. Traveling by bus to visit priests across the country I have come to see why Uganda is called the Pearl of Africa. The beauty that I have seen ranging from the terraced hills of Rubanda to the matoke and tea fields of Ft. Portal has struck me. I went to Queen Elizabeth national park where I saw my first elephant in African, to the Kibale forest where I communed with chimpanzees and to the Bwindi impenetrable forest where I trekked the growing ever more rare mountain gorilla. Participating in liturgies across the country, I have seen the external expression of the African sense of life put into dance. Traveling to Rwanda I have been confronted by the horrors of the genocide and seen the remarkable transformation and reconciliation that has happened since. I have engaged my Rastafarian friends in conversation about what it means to be fully alive and I have talked with priests about what it means to have personhood. I have struggled teaching long division to refugee children who don’t speak English and I have rejoiced at hearing some of my students on the street yell out, “Hi teacher”, rather than, “Hi Mzungu.”
My life in Africa has touched me deeply. I am sure that it will take some time for me to fully reflect and realize the impact that my experience is having on me here. I only hope that I can more fully immerse myself in the culture and the context surrounding me over these next few months so that I may have a more attuned ear to the experiences of the people here. Thank you for reading this. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Please also send me news of what you are up to in life. I cherish all that I hear from my friends throughout the world.
Peace,
Mike Le Chevallier