Student Blogs 2008

Learning the African Way
Lauren Page Black

Sunday, the Kika Troupe, the best dance troupe in Uganda, gave us African dance lessons… this was a comical experience, to say the least. At one point Yusef, the director, poked fun at the rapid stiff, long strides of Americans in a hurry. It was a sickeningly accurate impression of me a week ago. Our lives here are so different: at the end of a long day we can sit under the warm African sun on tree trunks and reflect.

That Sunday I looked in Yusef's eyes, and in the eyes of the other members of the Kika troupe and something struck me. I saw the same thing in the eyes of Sister Robin and Dr. Kawangee at the Naguru Clinic: I think it's joy. I think they are dancing or treating impoverished pregnant women because they love it. Perhaps in America we all started down the paths we're on with genuine passion and interest… but somewhere along the way work became stressful, intense, and exhausting.

Today when I watched Dr. Kawangee drain a patient's infected fallopian tubes and remove three baseball sized tumors I actually wished that I had my biology books with me. I realized I still have that passion and the Ugandan people are helping me- and all of us- find it again.

I wonder if it is competition, or the need for outside approval that disconnects us from our original desires? I feel I am far from sorting out this mystery.

Perhaps equally disconcerting is now to react to the simultaneous joys and hardship of African. Everyday in Kampala we are confronted by the reality of poverty and HIV/AIDS. Now, we are just beginning our journey, mere students of their ways. Our impact will be sometime- days, weeks, years- in the future. More than ever I realize our journey only will end when we choose to close our minds and our hearts to the country that has warmly welcomed us.  

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