You all know I love Africa (I’ve said it often enough) and I love missions in general. Nonetheless, missions work does have its challenges. Most of them I have learned to cope with.
I can cope with squatty toilets – I still don’t really like them, but I figure they are good leg strengthening exercise (I could be paying to go to the gym to do squats.) In any case, I have encountered far fewer squatties on this trip than on previous ones.
I can cope with appallingly bad roads and kamakaze, take-no-prisoners driving habits.
I can cope with the heat, though I will most certainly grab a fan and/or air cond if it is available.
I can cope with whatever kind of accommodation may be on offer.
But African time (“It’ll happen when it happens” “hakuna matata” – yes, that is a real Swahili phrase, meaning “No Worries”, just like in the film) – African time drives me crazy.
Now I freely admit that I am an “on time” person. It was drilled in to me as a kid that unless there was an extremely good excuse, to be late was just plain bad manners. As a result, I am not obsessively early, I am simply obsessively not late, which usually translates into my being early.
But here, time seems to have very little meaning. If they say something is happening at 9am, take that as meaning “any time after 9am, but not very soon after.” Meanwhile, I’m ready and waiting, fancifully hoping that maybe this time 9am will actually mean 9am. So I wait. And wait. And play far too much Mahjong on my phone. And fret about the productive things I could be doing in this time.
Another challenge that I find particularly difficult is language. I did try to learn a bit of Swahili before I came, but the last six months or so at home were so busy that it got pushed aside, and I have forgotten most of the little that I did learn. In any case, it would only have been useful in Kenya and one or two other countries. The people here, naturally enough, speak in their own language, even those who speak in English. Even Adams, whose English is excellent, told me that he has to translate from his own language as he is speaking. I but for me, sitting in a group with conversations going on around me but not being able to understand a word, is beyond frustrating. Even worse is when it is obvious that they are making plans for me, but forget that I can’t understand what they are saying and fail to let me in on the plans. The other side of that is that communicating what I want can be a major challenge, as they misunderstand what I am asking.
Today I had another frustration, this one unique to Uganda (at least I hope it is.) When I went to go on Facebook last night I received a “site not secure” message, and it refused to load. I tried numerous times, with the same result. I thought someone must have hacked Facebook. When I still couldn’t get on there this morning, I messaged our KOGMI Pastors WhatsApp group to ask if anyone else was having problems. Adams came back to me and told me that the Ugandan government had blocked Facebook, and even though in theory the block had been lifted it has still not been restored. The answer was to get a VPN. I tried the one he recommended, but it would only load to my phone, not to my laptop – and I don’t do Facebook on my phone. Tried a couple of others. They either didn’t work at all, or didn’t work in Uganda. I’ve given up. I’ve contacted my Associate Minister, Linda, and thrown her the responsibility of handling all our KOGMI stuff on Facebook, and asked her to let everyone know that I won’t be on the site for the next month. I have to say I’m pretty ticked off with the Ugandan government!
In spite of all the frustrations, I still love this calling. I know that I am exactly where God wants me to be, doing exactly what He wants me to do, and that overrules every frustration that life or the enemy can throw at me.