For all of you who hold the conception that being an MK is never difficult

We had to write about an experience we had from a child's point of view in English, so I wrote about getting ready to move here... Being an MK is great but this is for anyone who thinks it's all been easy peasy:

The airport was slightly crowded as we waited in line for ages. We lugged our heavy bags forward slowly, until we reached the desk. My dad piled our bags on the scale, and then it was done. Our bags were on their way, and soon we would be, too.

My adopted grandmother picked us up and took us out for dinner nearby, while I never let go of my stuffed Winnie the Pooh. I had the last bacon cheese burger I would have for quite a while.

Dinner was a blur, and then we were in the car again. Something tightened around my chest, and I couldn't breathe.

"Mom, I can't breathe. I feel like I'm dying I just want to go home. I want this to all be over" I whispered.

"I know, sweetie. I feel the same way. But we can

't go back now. We just have to keep going" she replied in a tight voice.

We reached the airport and my adopted grandmother held us tightly, while we all started to cry.

"I know you're in the middle of God's will, but I still will miss you," she said, holding on to me.

Finally, we trudged forward, while I held on to Pooh. Nothing except this bear would feel the same again. OUr lives were not our own, we had to do what God wanted. I played my mini cd-player while we fought through security and towards the gate, listening to the Zoegirl song "Beautiful Name". We climbed onto the airplane in a daze. The British flight attendant looked down at me with what seemed like pity. We found our seats, and buckled in for the first overnight flight. As the plane took off I felt my heart pound and then I could swear I felt it stop beating. I shut my eyes and leaned against my mom.

When I opened my eyes my whole worlkd was different. I just wanted to go back to the home I never could go back to, where some strange couple was now living. I wanted my bunk bed back, but I had sold that and had been sleeping on my floor and then in our friend's house over the last month. I wanted my room back.

I had to find a way to live in a new world, just me, Pooh, and the God who had turned my life upside down.

Now I was officially a missionary kid.

Years later, I can pack a suitcase for a 6 week trip in an hour easily and never have an overweight bag.I can make my way through passport control on my own, and now I officially have an adult passport. Dulles International Airport has become my landmark... I know my way around, and I have become familiar with the disconcerting feeling that I am returning to a country where the majority of people have the same accent and color of skin that I do. I never set off a metal detector, and the only thing I've ever had confiscated was a stress relief ball that even the security people couldn't figure out if it had gel in it or not. I'm always so glad to know that God doesn't just stay in one country, but travels with me. Sadly enough, I don't travel with Pooh anymore.

That said, next year when I turn my world upside down and move across the globe again, Pooh will come with me... probably on the airplane, too.

An amusing narrative of my klutziness topped off with some questions...

I recently went on a trip to Mabira Rainforest with my class to collect data on, well, trees. Let me just start this off by saying that yes, this is the kind of forest where there are snakes, freaky bugs, massive spider webs, and so many trees you can't really see the sky and so many vines and underbrush that you can't see the ground.

It was muddy. It was slippery. There were mammoth tree roots protruding from the ground which we fought our way over in rubber boots. They were slippery, too. I am a klutz… It was only a matter of time before I fell. And so I was waiting for it; I was just waiting for an epic, spectacular fall. It seemed almost inevitable. I made it through the first three days of the trip, fighting through underbrush where you’re not meant to pass unless you’re doing research. For the record, fighting through an untraveled stretch of rain forest is not easy. The picture below is like what we walked through, only we were walking uphill... and yes I do mean the dense foresty part

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And so when I was required to climb up a 45 degree hill of pure mud (honestly, no rocks, no tree roots) it did not surprise me that I wiped out and did a face plant. The more funny part was that my backpack had gotten stuck on one of the many climber vines which hung down from the sky (okay from other trees but still). So when someone was helpful and lifted up that vine, I started sliding backwards down the hill until someone very nicely grabbed a hold of me and lifted me up.

With my spectacular fall out of the way, I trudged up the 45 degree slope fighting through underbrush so dense you could not see your feet, confident that I would not fall again. That was up until we started coming down the hill… I stepped off a dead, decomposing, splintered, creaking, hollow tree trunk and stepped down into the underbrush. The problem with not seeing the ground through the underbrush is that you can’t, well, see the ground. I put my foot down; the distance between the tree trunk and the ground was greater than I had expected, and of course the mud sucked my boot straight in. Yes, I fell backwards, landing on my shoulders. Well, I’m a klutz, what else was I expecting? So I tried to get up. Of course, this is a tropical rainforest. The underbrush contains about 5 trillion vines just waiting to grab you. I stood up, and quickly fell again. At this point I finely wizened up and so I untangled my feet from some of the vines which were on my boots. I stood. I was pulled back to the ground again. I untangled myself more. I stood. I was pulled back to the ground again. Finally I found the culprit: a woody vine with a death grip on my boot. I fought my way out of the underbrush onto the “path” we had trampled on our way up the hill. Thankfully, I walked down without further epic falls.

Then the afternoon came. Pleased to be finished with our data collection, we retraced our steps for some photo ops. Because I felt like it, my friend Valeriya and I trudged across an over flowing rushing stream and climbed up that same disastrous amount of mud which was responsible for my first fall. But I made it up that time, and so did my friend. On our way down, we had a feeling we might fall, and so we said we would fall down together. When I reached out to take her hand she shoved me, sending me slipping part way down. The same vine which had caught me earlier caught me again. When I tried to get up, though, I of course slipped and slid down the remainder of the hill on my shoulders. I landed with my knees bent up over my head.

Valeriya and I trudged back across the stream, and then I decided to start splashing her for revenge. We had a water fight for a while, and then she pushed me down and I landed with my face in the stream. I was soaked. My other friend Jordan then attacked Valeriya and took her up the hill on the other side of the stream. I won’t go into details, but the whole thing ended with Valeriya pulling me down into the mud, pinning me down, and Jordan throwing a pile of mud on my nose and mouth.

I just laughed, to the amazement of our chaperone, my favorite teacher. He encouraged me to keep a smile, and I did. There is video evidence of all of this, and the video has actually been a good thing for me because it’s shown that I have a not-so-serious side.

Since then, though, I’ve been thinking a lot about falling. I’ve come up with so many questions. No, I’m not talking about physically tumbling… But what happens when you end up sliding down pure mud with your legs up over your head? Is it okay to fall? You’re trained as a missionary kid that it’s not okay, that you have to be the example, that you can never slip. And so I fight not to. I have avoided doing so many things (and not all of them are actually bad) simply because I thought an MK wasn’t meant to do them.

But is life staying in the city, walking paved sidewalks? Or is life taking the risk that you may fall?

Or are you supposed to do what I have always tried: walk on a tight rope and never let yourself fall?

And then the question becomes where is God when you fall? Is He the vine that caught me, and dropped me, twice?

Is He the friend who picked me up?

Is he the vine that had a death grip on me when I stepped off the log?

Is He the friend who through mud on my face to top off the experience?

Is he my encouraging and supportive teacher?

Or is He just standing back and laughing at me making a fool of myself?

And speaking of all of this, really, am I allowed to ask these questions? If I ask this, will you think I’m falling? Because what if I am? I’m not saying I am, I’m just asking.

I guess I walked away from the week with the knowledge that falling can be entertaining, for me and for everyone else. I guess that maybe it’s ok, as long as you can pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and walk away with a smile. But the question remains… does the rest of the world think it’s the worst thing in the world if I slip a little?

My in between world

This is something I wrote as a class assignment about a year ago. I think it definitely sums up the confusion of my life, and so I thought I'd share it.

I have often said to my family that I live entirely in an “in-between” world. I do not exactly belong anywhere, am always different from those surrounding me. There are many examples of this. One reason for this is that my cultures make me very different. I am American, but I only lived there until I was ten years old, before my parents and I moved here to Uganda. Because of this, some of my most important years have been spent in the US, but some of them have been spent here, so I’m not really American, but I’m also not Ugandan. Plus, I’m not quite the average third-culture kid who grows up in Kampala and just goes to school; I live at a university a ways outside of Kampala and therefore have a lot more direct cultural interactions. And yet, after all these years, I still do not belong in a strictly Ugandan setting. But, I go to school in Kampala, where I am still different. I don’t belong there, either.

I am majorly between two groups of friends. One group is my school friends, other international students who, for the most part, despise Uganda and hide away from interacting with the culture. Then, there are my other friends, those made during my years of homeschooling with my mom at the university we live in. These friends are total opposites, while my school friends have huge amounts of things and live very sheltered lives my friends here in Mukono have nothing. My favourite example of this is my close friend Bridget, who I only see for a few months a year as she is in boarding school. Bridget spent most of her life in a one-room accommodation, with the kitchen and latrines outside. She is a brilliant, lovely girl and I love the moments I get to spend with her. I do not quite fit in with my school friends as I prefer to spend my time raising money for an under-privileged school in the war-torn region of Northern Uganda than drinking and texting on my iPhone. This creates a barely bridgeable gap between me and my school friends. On the other hand, I have my own computer and iPod, so much more than what Bridget has, and I have had incredible life experiences that she will never have. This puts a difficult distance between us despite the fact that we are close friends regardless of our differences.

During the school days, people see parts of who I am, and judge me accordingly. It has taken a long time for people to stop assuming that I am a rigid Christian who will never have any fun, never have a boyfriend, and despise them for what they do. On the weekends, people see one side of who I am, and judge me accordingly. We live at a Christian University, where people tend to focus on not drinking and living a perfect life. They expect me to think along the same lines all the time, and I am often too nervous to do what I desperately want, to shout out at the top of my lungs “I am not perfect!” I do, however, have strong beliefs and a strong faith, which I try to make one of my more defining features. This keeps me apart from my friends, who prefer to stay out all Saturday night smoking marijuana and drinking than getting up and going to Church (not that I can possibly say I go to Church more than every other week). Sometimes I don’t go to Church because I can’t stand being told yet again that “Christians don’t drink or dance” and that I should spend my entire life in prayer. I’m simply not going to obey those guidelines, but I won’t go to some of the extremes (ie drugs and getting drunk) that my friends do.

Then there are the rules I’m somehow supposed to know by heart and follow. According to people at the university, I should never wear anything that comes above the knee. According to my friends at school, I should wear the dress that comes about three inches above my knee with no leggings because I have nice legs. Then my friends in the US wear mini-skirts and outfits that I would get yelled at for wearing on campus. Honestly, one day I tried going to the store on the way to a friend’s house in a pair of modest shorts. I will never make that mistake again. Add on the whole concept of dating. I have literally been told at a youth camp that you should not date until you think you may marry the man. Dating is totally taboo, especially for someone my age. Then I go back to the US where not only is it expected that I have a boyfriend, I’m asked probing questions about boyfriends by people at my church. Which set of rules am I actually supposed to live by?

People try to simplify me, perhaps they find me confusing. They try to put me into one bracket or another, sometimes trying to change the way I think about things (like telling me that I really should have just a few more drinks, that hooking up with a bunch of guys is cool) or by telling me that I should be a perfect little Church girl. Somehow, I manage to break the mould every time, creating what sometimes feels like a chasm between me and most people around me, aside from those who really know and accept me for who I am.

How NOT to talk to an MK: a helpful guide

Some of the most difficult aspects of being a “missionary kid” are visiting churches and talking to people you have never met, or who you knew a long time ago and now have to pretend you remember who they are. This is always incredibly awkward, especially if the person asks really weird questions. I wanted to write this to try to… well, express how someone’s attempts to converse may be, um, well, appreciated. Quite a few are for people my own age (in previous years and now).

1. If you’re someone at our church who I haven’t seen in two years, here’s a couple things the really should remember:
2. I have heard how grown up and beautiful I am about 50 times already by the time you come up and say that. Thank you for the compliment, but if I don’t look too enthusiastic it’s because I’m a little tired of feeling examined and being commented on. I don’t mind it from someone we are friends with, but if I don’t know you very well it’s kind of creepy. Just ask someone who grew up as a military brat, too.
3. If you’re not a close friend or someone I would obviously have to know, please please please introduce yourself before you give me a hug and start interrogating me. It’s been too long for me to automatically put your face with your name! Introduce yourself before you go about touching me.
4. If you don’t know me, then when you find out I live in Africa, don’t stare at me with your mouth hanging open like a fish, or look at me like “woah, what’s up with THAT? How weird!”. That gets old. Fast. Even if you know absolutely nothing about Africa, you could still say: “Oh really? Wow, where in Africa?” Or, if I say I live in Uganda without explaining where that is, you could just nod and say “I’m not quite sure where that is” as opposed to “UGANDA??? Where the **** is THAT???”
5. If the last thing you heard about Uganda was Idi Amin’s regime, then ask something about political stability, don’t try to give me a lecture on Idi Amin, or ask if he’s still in power. I’ll just laugh. Hysterically.
6. “Do you like living in Uganda?” is one that is almost sure to make me want to poke a hot knitting needle through you. Honestly, it’s not that simple. “What do you think about it” is also really tough, but I guess it’s better, if you absolutely have to ask. Otherwise, you could just ask about school, other questions about life, and talk to me like you would any other teenager/kid and then figure out for yourself. Seriously, people, that question became unanswerable when I was, well, 12. Whether you mean to or not, that puts a lot of pressure on me to answer “yes, of course”. I’d much rather be asked something which I could answer with “it has its ups and downs but generally it’s a positive experience”. Really, you shouldn’t expect me to answer yes or no to a question like that, especially because a lot of you just don’t understand the complexities we deal with.
7. What’s even worse with that kind of question is how you respond to my answer. If I say “well, it has it’s challenges, but it’s mostly good”, you may ask what the challenges are. If I start to talk about them, your response is often “well, at least it’s a great experience for you. You know so much more than people your age in the States”. I know it’s a great experience. I know it’s a great country. I know that I don’t fit in with people in the US. And when you say something like that, it makes it seem like I have to be all happy go lucky all the time, and not ever admit that it gets difficult at times.
8. Another question that people in the US tend to ask which drives me up the wall is “Do you speak any African?”. What’s even worse is having an older person that you respect (or at least that you should respect) say “I’m sure you’re just fluent in the language by now, aren’t you?” I honestly wish that I had thought, when I was younger and cuter and was asked this kind of question more, to answer with “No, but I go to an international school and I can insult you in five different languages” (okay, it’s a bit of a stretch, but a quick message on facebook and I could find out those insults).
9. The hardest one that tends to come up is: “What is your mission there?”, or some other version of that. Missions are great. I have lived and breathed missions for most of my life at this point. But when you ask what my mission is, I don’t know how to answer. I’m a 17 year old girl who loves guitar, music, coffee, academic challenges, and service projects. I had been running an Invisible Children project at school, which was always my answer to that question, but that died this year for multiple reasons. I don’t have an answer to that question that I don’t feel means I’m not living up to expectations. Right now I’m going to focus on being a teenager and getting the grades I want. I don’t have to have a specific “mission” right now. Actually, my “mission” is being and becoming the person I want to be. Please don’t ask me something that causes me to feel that because I’m an MK normal teenage goals are not good enough.
10. DON’T EXPECT ME TO BE PERFECT! I may be tired, frustrated, or anything else. Please don’t expect me to smile perfectly, behave way beyond my maturity level, or fulfill your expectations of what an MK should behave like. That’s just plain not fair to me. Just remember I’m 17 (or whatever age I am), not a 40 year old incredible world saving missionary.

Finally, here’s an example of how a really major fail of a conversation with someone goes (no offense to the lady if she reads this, hopefully after reading the whole thing you will understand why this is frustrating?)…

This nice lady walked up to me on Sunday while I was on my own, gave me a big hug, and said “Oh, it’s so great to see you, you’re so grown up!”

I replied “Oh wow, thank you, it’s great to see you too!” though I had no earthly clue who she was.

Then she asked me: “So what are you doing with your mom in Uganda? Friendship evangelism?”

“Yes.”

“That’s great that you have your mission. Do you like it over there?”

“Yes.”

“How long will you be there?”

“I have one more year, then I come back for college.”

“College already?”

“Yes.”

“ You’re so grown up already! You used to be so young and small!”

After the whole conversation I still didn’t know who she was. If she had introduced herself, it probably would have gone a lot better.

Goodbyes

I've been thinking a lot about goodbyes lately. The end of a school year always means people will leave. Tomorrow, I will say goodbye to two teachers, one of whom has been an incredible mentor over the last years, and one classmate. Tonight we said goodbye to the Buttons, who have been our close family friends for the last seven years. Mr. Button was one of the first people we met here, and the children, Abigail and Alex, were practically my little siblings for a while. We have spent a lot of time with this family, and it's sad to say goodbye.

On Saturday I have to say goodbye to my good friend, Cariel. Cariel has been here since everything started to fall apart with being sick and everything, and she is an incredibly good friend. I have said goodbye to good friends before, but she has stood with me through a lot, and saying goodbye this time seems extra painful. I still have 48 hours, and we plan to meet up when I go to College, but until then, this is goodbye.

When you say goodbye to a really close friend, you always promise to stay in touch. And if they're a really good friend, you might actually do so. But it is never the same. You cannot share what's really going on, because writing an email isn't the same as talking face-to-face, and a deep message only reminds you more that the person is not there with you and you may not see them again, yet they are also still partially available. I don't know if this makes any sense... but I think that's part of why some of us are so bad at staying in touch. It's easier to pretend the person no longer really exists as you knew them, especially because they can change and you may not know it.

The next two months will be strange, but I've done it before, so it's not so bad. When we go back to the US, there's always this joy to see all of my friends. And of course, because of the culture at our church, it's kind of like going to somewhere with about a hundred family members. The number has decreased over time, but it's always the same: a hug, "I'm so happy to see you", a two minute conversation, and move on to the next person. With our really close friends, we go out for a few meals or spend a good amount of time with them. And then you say goodbye, ready to resume life here again. It is always painful. The last two times I even cried when I had to leave the church the last time. Now I realize that that is an overreaction. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't appreciate the people, it's not that I don't care or feel sad. It's just that as soon as you say goodbye, you have to move on again.

After a friend left last year in October, I promised myself that I would never cry when I said goodbye again. No matter what And I intend to keep that promise. I know a lot of people who seem to feel the same way. After years of goodbyes and the loss of almost all really close friends, it does not get easier. You just push the difficulty away. It may not be the best option, but that's what a lot of us do (whether we are willing to admit it or not). It is the easiest way to manage.

I guess I put this up, as incoherent as I am at this moment, in the hopes that some people in the US will understand the difficulties this portion of life for those of us who have had friends move away constantly, or who have moved around too many times themselves, and that friends here think about the way we say goodbye to each other. Next year, we will all go our separate ways. We will be distributed across several continents. I don't know, that may be a lot harder, but on the other hand, maybe it will be easier than being left behind, or a superficial hello-goodbye thing. Surely it must be easier to say goodbye and move on, than to just be left behind.

The last thing I want to say is some lyrics from one of my favorite songs. I think it speaks for itself...

"Things are changing
It seems strange and
I need to figure this out
You've got your life
I got mine
But you're all I cared about
Yesterday we were laughing
Today I'm left here asking
Where has all the time gone now
I'm left alone somehow
Growing up and getting older
I don't want to believe it's over
Don't say goodbye
Cause I don't wanna hear those words tonight
Cause maybe it's not the end for you and I
And although we knew
This time would come for me and you
Don't say anything tonight
If you're gonna say goodbye"

--"Say Goodbye", by Skillet

Plans, life, school, moving on... excitement!

So, as I promised a few people, this is about our plans for the summer, and what I'm thinking about university.

My mom and I leave next Saturday night for the US... Yay! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'm especially excited because in our first few days there, my friend Jon, who I practically grew up with since I was one, is graduating high school. My mom and I will be staying with him and his family, and going to his graduation. I'm so excited to see them and get to be there for all of this.

My mom and I will stay in Virginia for about two weeks. I have a huge list of things I want to do before that, though. Here's part of the list. Haha, I figured that I'd put it up for all of the people who are trying to figure out what people like me miss and look forward to. So, here it goes (for the record, it isn't in any particular order):

1. Eat ribs
2. Eat ice cream
3. Go to church at Truro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!
4. Spend time with our family friends :)
5. Spend time with my friends
6. Go to a mall for half an hour before I get overwhelmed and run away
7. Go to a book store
8. Go to a guitar store to get supplies.
9. Spend a few hours looking at stuff in, get how sophisticated I am in my shopping, Walmart.
10. Take a walk around the lake near the house I lived in.
11. Go into DC. I need to find a friend to do this with me!!!! I really, really, REALLY want to see the monuments again, and go to the Natural History museum. If anyone is interested in taking the metro in with me let me know :)
12. Go to Panera
13. Get through the required, immediate reverse culture shock as easily as possible. I don't know why, but I always have a tough time adjusting back at first. It's a totally different culture. Honestly, I know America is a diverse country, but I can't help freaking out at first when I realize that the majority of people are white. It's totally bizarre. And getting used to the way/things people talk about life... it's always a little bit special.

My mom and I head out of Virginia on the 4th of July. I know, I know, we're not very patriotic to fly that day. But honestly, it's not really my country right now, I just like the fireworks. We'll get to Oregon on the 4th, which is cool. I'm looking forward to seeing my family there.

My dad will meet up with us in Portland, and we'll go up to Seattle. All of the colleges I'm looking at are in Seattle. We'll have a few days to look around at them, which I'm looking forward to, and we'll get time to wander around the city I'm going to be living in about 15 months from now. Here's a list of the universities I'm looking at, the websites, and a little information about each, if you're interested. They are arranged in order of the ones I'm most interested in, at the moment...

1. Seattle Pacific University. It's a Christian university with about 4000 students. I like the size, and it's not far from the main parts of Seattle. I'm really interested in this one for so many reasons. First of all, they offer good scholarships for missionary kids. They also have a strong Mukapa program. This is a re-entry support program for missionary kids, which I think could be really helpful given that my parents will still be here. Plus, all of the students that I've gotten to know from SPU are freaking awesome (hehem Morgan, Arianna even though you don't go there, Hannah, Leah, Tara, Carissa...) If anyone is extremely interested (not sure why, but hey, you could be), you can find out more about it at http://www.spu.edu/
2. Pacific Lutheran University. This isn't really Christian, despite the name, but seems to be a really good school in Tacoma, so not too far from Seattle. They offer pretty decent financial aid, it's about the same size as SPU, and it seems like it would be a good transition from the IB program because they brag on their website about "balance" and "academic rigor with balance". Again, you could look at it at http://www.plu.edu/.
3. University of Washington. Hey, why not? It's a good school, with a lot of options, an awesome location, and a good culture. The main issue I have with it is the size. 40,000 students is about 200 times the size of my high school!!!! I don't think I can do that. Plus, the financial aid isn't great. That said, it's a fantastic school, so it's definitely an option!
4. University of Puget Sound. UPS is in Tacoma, and about the same size as PLU and SPU in terms of students. It seems like a fine school, and I like the size, but there's nothing I'm really excited about it for, but the financial aid isn't bad. http://www.pugetsound.edu
5. Well, it's not in Seattle, but I'll apply to Stanford just for the fun of it. I don't know if I'd actually go there because of the culture, the location, the cost, but I just want to see if I get in.

So, those are the universities I'm looking at. We'll see, I'll get to see them this summer and make a decision next year. I just know that I want to go to Seattle. It's cold, it rains a lot, I love the North-West, there are mountains around, there's water, there's great coffee, and I've been adopted so far by 4 families for holidays and breaks. So that's cool.

My parents and I will then go down to Fresno, CA to see family, and then we fly back to Virginia. We'll be there from the 23rd to the 30th.

Here's something really awesome: we saved a ton of money by flying Turkish air, stopping in Istanbul. So, we're spending three days in Istanbul on the way back. YES!!!

I can't wait for this summer. I'm just sad because while we're gone Cariel and her family will leave :( It's very sad... She's been one of the most incredible friends I've ever had. She came when everything was falling apart, and I'm so grateful that she's been her through it all. I'll miss her!

It feels so awesome and strange to be looking at the places I'll spend the next four years of my life, on my own. I'll be moving to a different hemisphere... on my own. It's cool, it's exciting, it's overwhelming, I guess this magnitude of change just comes with growing up, especially in a different continent!

Birthday :)

So, thanks to my neighbor and really good friend, Cariel, and her entire family, I had an amazing birthday. It was absolutely wonderful.
The Smith family picked me up for school with a small piece of partially frozen carrot cake and a balloon, which I greatly appreciated (much to their amusement, as I later discovered). The day was mostly fine, my friends were very nice (after I reminded a few of them). But then, when I got home, I noticed that there was a sign on my door. A brightly painted poster saying "happy birthday".
I went into my room, and found my bed completely covered with little balloons, three posters (and another on my chair) but also covered in little notes, with all of our funny memories together. It was totally awesome. And when I went down to say thank you, they had made me brownies. Another neighbor and their kids also gave me a necklace, my mom made goat for dinner (I know, I know, I'm weird, but I like it), we had OTHER neighbors up to play Settlers (best game ever) and that was my birthday.
I owe Cariel and the Smiths so much for my birthday. I guess I needed that kind of thing after everything this year... and I can't actually believe that they're such good friends. I'm not sure what I would have done without Cariel this term.

Life goes on, and on.

So, I think the title pretty much is self explanatory. Life just goes on.

Things have been almost entirely quiet in the last couple of weeks. That said, tomorrow is Museveni's inauguration after he won the last elections in February. Honestly, if there's ever a time that people are really justified in protesting or even rioting, it would be tomorrow (not that I condone violence tomorrow, and I do hope no on will riot). Museveni has spent four billion shillings (2 million dollars) on his inauguration, while the people protest because inflation rates are so high and though no one talks about it, people still starve. And yet Museveni spends this much. It's really sad.

To make it all worse, after the last riots Besigye (the main opposition) was injured to some extent, and he had to fly to Nairobi for treatment. He was supposed to come back this morning, but he was pulled off his flight and it is not quite clear why. After that he was supposed to leave at 5:30 pm but the plane left without him. So, there are some people blaming the government, but no riots, so that's good.

With Museveni's inauguration, tomorrow is a public holiday. Thank goodness. In the next few weeks I have exams and several other things going on. After this week we only have five weeks of school left. Yay!

I'm still on crutches... but I can put weight on my foot and walk on it a little bit as long as I use the crutches too. The doctor says that when my foot gets better I can walk with one, and after five more weeks (from today) at the most I should be able to walk with no crutches. That would be ten weeks in total... After being sick I'm just not so pleased with that. But by the summer I should be fine, though someone pointed out to me today that I could just avoid all the lines in the airport if I'm on crutches. Oh joy...

We leave for the US on July 19th. I can't wait. I'm so happy... we get to go to a graduation and the parties for  a guy that I have been friends with since I was one and he was two. I've been really worried that he wouldn't want to see me this time, so I'm happy about all of this. I can't wait to see some of my friends, and I'm hoping that I can go into DC with some friends. I want to go to the monuments and museums again.

Riots, Riots, Everywhere. Will they stop?

Well, I'm sorry to anyone who has been interested that I haven't posted anything about the riots that have been going on in Uganda for the last few weeks, so now I will write a nice summary of it all.

Basically, the main opposition to President Museveni, Kizza Besigye, lost in the elections in February again. Everything was peaceful for a while. Then, people started to protest the sudden rise in fuel prices and inflation which has caused food prices to sky-rocket. Basically, on Thursday the 14th, Besigye and other opposition leaders decided to walk to work in order to protest the price of fuel. The police reacted severely, and tried to arrest him. The people rioted and fought back, and some live bullets were fired. Besigye was shot in the hand with a rubber bullet, which made people extremely angry.

 The police pulled people out of houses and shot tear gas (an irritating gas used to disperse riots) into people's houses, and into some schools. There were running battles, and several people were injured, including a pregnant woman who was shot in the stomach. This all happened about 10 minutes from my school, so they sent us home early. That was extremely interesting, as our neighbor had to drive me and his kids home. These neighbors are from Utah, and are only here for 6 months. They have never been in riots before, and so I called him from school, told him we needed to leave, got his kids (including one of my good friends) and figured out if we needed to take back roads or plan something else. Unbeknown to us, some of these riots had taken place about a 30 seconds drive from the main gate of the university, so about 2 minutes from our front door.

 Besigye promised to continue walking to work every Monday and Thursday.

On Monday everyone thought everything was calm, and around my school it was. However, when my mom showed up at school I could tell something was not right. She pulled out her phone, and showed me a picture of the burning tires she had to drive through to get to my school (the good thing was my dad's driver took her in because they knew there were problems). And this was the back way, while she tried to avoid riots. So, we drove home. The road was still blackened all the way across, and the police were out in full force. It was quite disconcerting. That night, we heard shouting from the house, and people were rioting very close by (about two minutes from my house).

My mom took this picture on her way to pick me up. This was one of the fires on the road, but when we came back through about 100 meters away from this the road was blackened from burning road blocks like this all the way across. My mom luckily avoided those, but she had to go through this one. While it was not on fire anymore, this road was so eerie and charred when we came through.

The Thursday before Easter Besigye walked again. In Masaka, about 2 hours from where we live, people rioted. The police reacted again, and shot live bullets. A two year old was shot while she was playing in the head and the chest. She died pretty much instantly. Besigye was arrested yet again, and held in prison until Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Besigye was allowed bail and set free, as long as he didn't try to walk or cause any riots again.  However, yesterday morning he attempted to leave his compound. The police stopped him, but directed him to drive on a certain road as long as he did not wave or make a scene at all. But, the police and others attacked his car. They smashed it, and him and his aides and workers, with sledge-hammers and gun butts. Besigye was drenched in tear gas, and sent to the hospital unable to see. He was fairly severely injured. People protested, but it was not a massive problem. This picture was taken yesterday when Besigye was being arrested

Today, everything kind of fell apart. A rumor circulated on Twitter that Besigye had died, which was not true. People reacted, though. Severe riots broke out everywhere. They were near my school (though thankfully I'm on spring break), right around my friends' houses, and spread all over the place. Basically, people formed road blocks and hit the anti-riot police with rocks. They set huge fires, and everything turned into chaos. We had no idea about this, until around 11 a.m. my dad sent my mom a text. My dad was at a staff retreat in what turned out to be one of the major hots-spots. We continued getting texts from him which said things like "It's a good thing to have microphones so that you can be heard over gun shots and explosions". Needless to say, we were worried.

This picture I actually took from an msnbc article. The armed person is a riot police officer who is shooting pepper spray at Besigye... in his car.

So, these pictures were taken from the BBC article about today (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13237058) . It was taken about an hour and a half from where we are...

The riots continued to spread, including in Mukono (the town I live in) . However, they finally quieted down. Everything seems fairly calm now. However, on Monday Besigye will likely walk again, unless he is arrested again since he was too badly injured yesterday. It is probable that riots will break out again, and again. It's not like this is a revolution, but it is chaotic. Part of me wishes that people would just revolt, and get all of this sporadic chaos over with. I know that doesn't make sense, but at least a continual revolution is more predictable than this.

I took this picture from the Monitor website (the Monitor is one of Uganda's two main English newspapers). They have live updates on the riots and information. If you're interested, the link is monitor.co.ug

I'll try to post more often about what's going on. Meanwhile, I'm sitting at home, waiting for my dad to get back. One more interesting thing: I'm currently on crutches for a badly sprained ankle. I've been on crutches for three weeks now, and I have at least another to go. Isn't that exciting?

This I (do/do not) Believe: My Response to an Essay on Atheism.

 One of my friends that I’ve talked with before about religion sent me an essay that she had to read, and asked me what my thoughts were on it. Basically, the essay is about not believing in God. I think it has some really great arguments and points. So, this is my response to it. Feel free to skim read it if you’re bored :P. Unfortunately, once I started writing I couldn’t  stop. So this goes on for a little while, but I added pictures and tried to make it more fun. If you want to read the original essay (which I recommend) here’s the link: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/34/. But I tried to include some quotes so you’re not lost if you don’t read it. That’s part of why it’s so long. Enjoy, and try not to get bored.

This guy says that “anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God”. A lot of people bring this up: there is no evidence for God. How can you believe in something that you can’t see is there? But that’s the thing, you CAN see He’s there, if you look. I don’t understand how someone can believe that the Alps and other incredibly gorgeous sites just came about by accident. Honestly, how is the magma in the earth just the right temperature that it causes convection currents which move the plates in the earth in the right directions that they collide together, push up and form the highest (and most beautiful) points on earth simply by an accident of temperature? I mean, here's a picture of the Alps. How is this an accident?

I love the quote my Biology teacher always brings up when we’re talking about DNA “DNA is the best proof for the existence of God” (or something to that effect, and no, I can’t remember who said it first). But think about it, how do phosphorus atoms alternate with a sugar by lining up with the third and the fifth carbon atoms on the sugar? And the sugar isn’t just any sugar, it’s deoxy-ribose, which means that it has one less oxygen atom than ribose, which has one less carbon than glucose. If this combination was not exactly right, life on earth could not exist. How is it possible that phosphorus atoms aligned just right with deoxyribose to form life (or at least DNA…)? It is so intricate, so specific, that I just cannot accept that it is a total accident. To me, that is fantastic proof. 

As my Biology teacher also says “people say that if the World exists because of Intelligent Design, there should be a plan or blueprint for life. DNA is that blueprint.” If all of this DNA stuff sounds like a bunch of nonsense to you because you haven’t done IB Higher Level biochemistry, there’s a diagram of the structure of DNA strands below :). To me, there really couldn’t be better proof.

A lot of people want hard evidence, something that says “GOD EXISTS, PEOPLE!!!!!”.  But one of my favorite characteristics of God is that He gives us free will. Basically, in very simple terms, this means that we can choose if we want to believe in him or not, and we can choose if  we want to obey him or not. I’ve always thought that this is really because God wants us to be in a faithful, close relationship with him that we choose. We have to choose it. If evidence is thrown in our face, then there is no room to choose faith. And then we’re just mindless droids and slaves. I think that would really suck. I mean, does anyone really enjoy doing a chore that they have no choice about? I don’t. And God wants us to enjoy what He’s given us. 

So, while I’m droning on about freewill… this writer says that “Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.” First of all, I don’t believe that God causes suffering. I believe that He allows us to go through it so that we can become stronger and better people. This is, honestly, the one area I’ve struggled with the most, especially living in Uganda.

 How can God have allowed some of the atrocities committed by the LRA? How is it possible that someone dies ever 4.5 minutes from Malaria, just in Uganda? This is why this guy says refers to a “force that isn’t bothered to help us”. Why doesn’t God just wipe out suffering? But, I also think that suffering causes us to see God where we normally wouldn’t, to form a relationship with him through everything. Plus, if we haven’t gone through suffering, how can we help others with it, as he claims is the outcome of having no God? 

 Honestly, I don’t believe that if God wiped out suffering we would really have free will. Once again, if people didn’t choose to inflict suffering on others, or if they didn’t have to overcome suffering, we would just be mindless droids. We wouldn’t have to look for God; we would see him all the time. Again, there’s no free will. I think the point is that we form a stronger relationship to God through our suffering, and that the point is for me to learn to rely on him to get me through it. If the world was a happy place full of pretty flowers (which it kind of is) and we could skip along singing all day then why would we need or even want God? And He wants us to want Him and need Him. 

This author claims to be happy with everything in the world. But the truth is, what if he only knows a tiny fraction of it? What about trusting that God is looking out for you and can guide and advise you? What about knowing that there is something more? What about knowing that, in the midst of any suffering or pain, there’s something more than that? Why would you not want that? Honestly, he believes that that is everything in the world. I believe there is more. I believe that everything he lists as being “everything in the world” is a little superficial. And besides, as I mentioned at the beginning of this ridiculously long thing, where does he think all of these good things come from? How do the chemicals in the brain create romantic love? 

He brings up the idea of forgiveness, and that there really is none accept for kindness and faulty memories. He says that it makes him more thoughtful and nicer to people the first time round. Honestly, does he not realize that he’s human? Humans make mistakes. And even if others forgive us, can we always forgive ourselves? God offers us complete and total forgiveness if we come to Him. I would certainly not want to live knowing that there was no way to really wipe out all of my mistakes, especially if they were big ones. Even with little mistakes, who wants to always be forced to remember them, and to know they cannot be forgiven? I don’t know who could die in peace that way, with a whole long list of wrongdoings and condemnations in the back of their mind. Personally, I prefer the idea of dying in peace, knowing that God has thrown my sins, and mistakes, “as far as the East is from the West”.

Okay. I have to say I agree with him about communication. Honestly, talking with people who don’t agree with you is the best way to challenge your own beliefs, and to strengthen and refine them. If I didn’t agree with that then I wouldn’t be writing this right now… Honestly, I don’t really respect people who say “I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.” (as this writer says people say). Faith is meant to be shaken and tested and worked on. And honestly, the other quote he brings up is pretty bad too: “How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do.” Ouch. I think a lot of Christians say that, just in more kind words.

 All I can say to this last point is that the judgmental,  over-bearing kind of Christian who has no problem pointing out that what someone else things is absolutely WRONG is not the kind of person I like to be around either, and the kind of Christian I hope to never be. Jesus ate with prostitutes, and loved them for who they were. Honestly, if I cannot listen to someone else’s view and have an intelligent conversation with them, than I wouldn’t care very much for myself. 

So, that said, I wasn’t meaning to shut down his beliefs. I think these are some really great points about not believing in God. I didn’t want to shut down the arguments. I’m just responding to his beliefs with mine, not intending to be judgmental or condescending. I don’t know enough about the world to do that, and I don’t think anyone really does. I would love to hear what anyone else has to say about this :)