Lessons from Uganda and Zanzibar - #2 Enter Curious

Lesson #2 – Enter curious

3/26 10:07p.m.

Victoria was so proud to show me the rest of her land, the other boys and girls’ dormitories, and describe plans to build a new dormitory that will house 100 kids, an office, clinic, and kitchen. From her pride, you might imagine a large, cleared field, but that is not what I found. Instead, we walked through the village, past an expensively built home belonging to a government official, to two shacks with doors falling off the hinges, broken windows, and a crying baby inside. The girls’ quarters were empty because most of them attend boarding school (Victoria doesn’t want them getting distracted by boys walking to and from school). The boys were crowded into their “dorm,” where most sleep two to a bed on dirty, mildewed foam cushions. I began to ask myself, “Is this better than where they come from?” Maybe what I am really thinking is, “Why isn’t this as good as where I come from?”

4/3

            I keep thinking about Teju Cole’s “White Savior Industrial Complex” article. While I’d substitute “Western” in place of “White,” because criticizing anything according race only often oversimplifies the real issue, I appreciate his critique of privilege, even his own, and his reminder that “solutions” should come from within a context, not from an outside “savior.”

            Growing up, I was always taught that as a guest in someone else’s home, you must humble yourself to not criticize or judge, to simply follow. I think the WSIC is not just about saving other people or places, but arrogance towards different ways of living and wanting everyone else to do as we do, and live as we live. Helping others have a better life shouldn’t be about giving them all we as the privileged class have, but helping and empowering them to gain access to all that they want and deem necessary. Not what we would want or need if tables were turned (i.e. clothing, toys), but what they’re hoping, aspiring, or possibly asking for.

When a visitor in someone else’s home, you help where and when you’ve been asked. And through developing a relationship, you can inquire and learn about your hosts’ desires and hopes, and offer knowledge on particular topics and even resources. But to enter someone’s home, be that their actually house or their country, and force or assume your standards of living on anyone else, or judge their lifestyle according to your standards, is arrogant, presumptuous, offensive, and thus ineffective.

Small plot of beans.

Girls' dorm with solar light panel donated by Boy Scouts.

First level of the new kitchen.

I know it may not look like much, but these are materials that will be later be used to build an additional kitchen for the boys and girls' dorms. This pile of rocks symbolizes a step in the right direction.

Entrance to the government official's home next door to BKU.

Using a razor blade to give his brother a hair cut.