Disease
Ebola. One of the most deadly diseases known to man, with in a week 89% of people die. It’s one of the diseases that I learned about in Miss. Hutchison’s 5th grade biology class, one of those things that’s so rare and deadly that 99% of the people in that young class wouldn’t be within 1000 miles of a case in their entire lives. So imagine how excited I was to get this email:
U.S. Embassy Kampala, Uganda
Warden Message - November 30, 2010
Outbreak of Unidentified Illness in Northern Uganda
Ugandan press are reporting an outbreak of an unknown severe illness in three districts of Northern Uganda, characterized by fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The districts identified as being affected are: Abim (specifically Morulem sub-county), Agago (Omiya P’Chua, Adilang and Paimoi sub-counties) and Kitgum (Orum, Namokora and Kitgum Town Council).
While we are seeking to confirm these details, the U.S. Mission in Kampala and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) office in Uganda recommend U.S. citizens residing and traveling in Uganda minimize their travel to these affected areas until further information becomes available. Non-essential U.S. Government official travel to the three affected areas is presently restricted.
Kitgum is about 50 kilometers away… Word on the street is that it’s either Ebola or Dysentery, that’s right, the Dysentery that your character always died from in Oregon Trail. The Center for Disease Control and the US Department of State websites have yet to mention any thing at all so my level of concern is pretty low. But our group is a little on edge nonetheless, we leave Gulu in about 8 days so our level of possible contact is hopefully pretty low. Won’t stop me from keeping my fingers crossed for this next week for this little outbreak to sputter out. The fact that people here actually have to worry about contracting Ebola is mind-boggling. I was talking to my host mother, Jackie, when I was here last, and she mentioned that a few years back there was an outbreak in Gulu. Apparently the Ugandan government sent troops who had been stationed in the Congo, who were showing signs of the virus, to Northern Uganda to keep them away from the favored south. Almost 100 people died. People may question our government in the US sometimes, but sending infected soldiers to a separate region of the country instead of quarantining them? That’s a whole new low.
Watoto: A reflection on service and mission trips
Mission trips and service trips are unique experiences. They allow you to leave the comfort of home and travel to a place that is drastically different from whence you came, to see how people in different cultures live. Most of these trips have a service element to them, to allow participants to give back to the community they are visiting. I have been on three trips like this, to Ecuador, Jamaica and Peru. I realized very quickly, right after my freshman year of high school trip to Jamaica through my church, that these are much more about personal growth than the growth of the communities. A week spent by thirty American highschoolers in the hills of Jamaica helps about thirty-four people: Four Jamaicans who benefit from the laying of a concrete floor in their house, and thirty Americans who learn about a new culture and can take their experience there back home to help expand their idea of the world around them. My biggest problem with mission trips is that their brevity only allows for a glimpse of the culture and situation at hand. Most of the time is spent among fellow Americans and that can seriously cloud the actual situation at hand. I think personal growth is a very important thing as well as increasing your awareness of the world around you. And I have no problem with giving back to the community to which you have come but active steps need to be taken to make sure the giving back is going to be more helpful than detrimental.
Building structures on a trip for a foreign population is a concrete, tangible creation that can benefit a certain number of people for a considerable amount of time. Unfortunately, it still increases dependency in the area where the structure has been built; now other people from the community have a reasonable expectation that a group of foreigners will come and build them a house. The more frequently this happens, the more the receiver comes to expect anything and everything from these visiting peoples. Work ethic becomes an unnecessary trait as one can now expect to be given what they need to survive without working for it. Teaching someone to make something is more sustainable than giving it to them.
I go on this tangent because of something I witnessed this past week. We have been in East Africa for three months now. There is no service aspect of our trip, we are here strictly to learn about the culture and post-conflict situation in both Uganda and Rwanda in order to apply our learning to later experiences in life to affect change on a large scale if necessary. In Gulu, where NGOs and mission trips abound, simply being a white person from anywhere means that we “have to give” people things. You’ll walk down the street and children will demand that you give them money, adults too. I wondered where this mindset came from, who was handing out money and clothes and food so freely and happily to these people that they had come to expect that because of my skin tone that they were entitled to receive something from me. Then, my question was answered.
Watoto is a mega-church created by Canadian missionaries. There is a large church based in Kampala and another one in Gulu. They have very noble goals, to help orphans and widows in Uganda.
I was sitting in a local coffee shop, The Coffee Hut, a western establishment (great for food with a little American kick/ shakes). The café has large glass windows that let you see right out into the street. We saw a bus pull up with a large number of Muzungus all wearing either bright blue or bright red shirts that had big white letters that said “SERVE” on them. The swarmed out of the bus and within seconds saw a young resident of Gulu in a T-shirt that might have looked a little ragged. They immediately grabbed a bag and a brand new shirt and gave both to the boy. Then they surrounded the boy took lots of pictures with him in his brand new shirt and with his bag. Then they left him to go into the Coffee Hut. They all came in smiling and cheerful, and they were extraordinarily nice people. They had been in Uganda for a week and were going to be here for one more week, pretty standard mission work time period. They had come all the way from Los Angeles.
The world has a need for nice people who want to give of themselves to help others, but misguided help is a dangerous thing. By giving the young resident of Gulu a new outfit and bag, merely because they encountered him in the street, most certainly instilled a sense of dependency in the young man. If he can just walk around town, the Muzungus will come and give him things. This sort of charity is exactly why many people here simply expect that any foreigner in Gulu is only here to give them something and then leave.
-Muzungu entering his last week in Gulu while dodging Unknown Illnesses
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