The best and the worst

I've realized lately that in some ways I only tell the "good" parts about Karamoja - less so online than in person, where I tend to have the standard answer of yeah, I loved it, and yeah, I'd love to go back. Part of that is even though I've seen a lot of the negative things, and think about them as part of my experiences, I still love the Karamojong. But I need to be quicker sometimes to tell other that there's things there that will break your heart.

Nothing captures this better for me than the afternoon I became friends with Mama Chipa. (Her first name is Joyce, but since I mention the other Joyce often, I'm going to refer to her Mama Chipa - it's common there to be called after one of your children, whether you're a man or woman.)

Amy, Nolan, and I went to Joyce and Rose's village for a Bible study. It was a hot afternoon, very dry. I'd gone to the clinic for a malaria smear after lunch but by 3ish, when we set out, I'd forgotten about it. Going to the village is one of the greatest experiences, though not always pleasant.

When we got there, it took a few minutes to go around inviting the women to join us. We ran into Mama Chipa, who was about seven months pregnant; she was getting loaded on etoule or beer. She was really pleased to see me for some reason - "ah, my friend, Amanda." I'd greeted her often (she lives on the compound, the wife of a clinic staff member), but didn't know her very well at all. But today she took a bronze bracelet from her wrist and pushed it up onto my own arm. Amy took a picture of us, her arm tight around my shoulder.

So, we were friends. When the study was ready to start a few minutes later, I asked and teased her to sit down on a mat next to me, with a bunch of the kids. Maybe it was a mistake; but we were going to read about Mary, pregnant with Jesus, and seemed to tie into her life.

All meetings like this in Karamoja start out with singing and clapping. Mama Chipa got right into the spirit of things, leading enthusiastically. She in fact took over singing, leading us in repeating verse after verse till we wondered if it would go on forever. :) It was fine, but she was obviously drunk, and the kids were laughing hysterically at her antics. But she did stop, and I know she wasn't so inebriated that she wasn't bothered by being the butt of these kids laughter. After we prayed, she whispered to me agitatedly that she had to go. Amy, Nolan, and I were doing a good job of teaching her kids, and she was glad of that. All I could say was "I think they want to learn from you, too."

I don't know how else to say this: it broke my heart to see her go, embarassed and confused and unable to stop herself. Maybe it was partly a heightened emotional state from malaria (I found out I did have it), but I think I would have had to fight back tears anyway. It was the most intense grief I've felt for someone else in a long time; through meeting her in the village, I got an insight into her life that I never would have had elsewise.

That was only one part of the afternoon, though. The highlight of the study was Nolan's memorable illustration involving a piece of stick and a lighter - what even one sin against God deserves, and what Christ took in our place: he burned in God's wrath instead.

Then we trooped over to the neighboring group of huts...several kids tagging along, as usual..to see Lodem's wife, who had just given birth to baby Kris. To get inside the mud hut she was in, you had to crawl single file through a tunnel about three feet high, into a dark room full of smoke from the fire in the center. Lodem's tired wife was sitting on a mat, naked from the waist, holding her new baby. Amy knew enough Karamojong to (with another woman to translate) talk to the girl and give the baby a gift.

Nolan and I waited outside, with the kids. A tiny little girl sat in my lap, holding on tightly to my fingers whenever I had to put her down for a minute. She was so solemn; like some of the other little kids, she just needed to be close to someone, and she wasn't afraid of me. This is a typical third world country tear jerker stories, I guess. At the fence, after we climbed through and were heading back home, she started to wail. She and some of the other children got through the wire and ran after us. What are you supposed to do? You can't take this kid home with you. You don't want to make her love you. So you can't pick her up and hug her and say "come on with us." We had to send her back and ignore the tears.

It was a weird afternoon. I felt strung out from malaria - it numbs you in some ways and opens your eyes in others. Somehow the experience was exhausting and horrible and good all at once, a golden afternoon with plenty of heat and dirt.

And that, in some ways, is Karamoja to me.