Sunday, December 28, 2014

Mary Remembers


Last year when I was here, there was talk of putting on a Christmas cantata for the people of the community. I spent about a week learning what a cantata was and putting together ideas and backbone… wishbone… whalebone… bare boned? … whatever—rudimentary plans. (Welcome to my brilliant English major’s mind. For the record, I also misspelled “English” four times before getting that one right. I might be tired.) After a week or two, there was no more talk and the cantata slipped through the cracks.

At that time, I did not imagine I would be here to actually see it through the following year. Nevertheless, three months ago a group of us sat down to determine whether a Noah’s Ark cantata seemed feasible, and the consensus was to give it a try. So we did.

The goal was to provide a way for the people in the surrounding community to hear the Christmas message and to invite them to our Sunday church services the rest of the year. Here, most people celebrate the holiday with new clothes and a large meal with family, but that is often where it stops. Watoto church in Kampala puts on an elaborate cantata every year, and while we knew we could not hold ourselves to their professional standards, we started scoping out whom on the compound could make this happen. This was most entertaining when we had one of the guards belting out “We Three Kings” at the compound gate.


Somehow—well, not exactly somehow, since I blame Warwick, but that’s neither here nor there at this point—I ended up as a director and one of the four overhead people preparing the event. Since my acting and directing résumé was limited to American Girl Doll plays with the cousins and camp skits, it was very much a learning experience. 


We held auditions, had meetings with the group of women who volunteered to make costumes, had about six different rehearsals each week, searched for props, tried to figure out how to make two grown men look like a semi-realistic donkey, decided on music, rewrote a script, pulled bags and bags of donated fabric from containers to make costumes, yelled at people for being late to rehearsal, and occasionally pulled out our hair in stress and frustration.


Oh, and on the day of our dress rehearsal—two days before the first performance—I got malaria, so that was fun.

In the early brainstorming stages, I said I would be willing to teach a group of children ballet so we could have different kinds of dance in the performance. Doing so was more difficult than I anticipated. Because of my trip to Chicago, we were not able to start rehearsing until late November. Trying to teach ten people who have never done ballet an entire dance in three weeks was… well, at times it seemed stupid, but they worked hard and in the end it came together and we had a blast.


The cantata, called Mary Remembers, was told in two different time periods. The gospel writer Luke was interviewing Mary as an old woman, having her give an account of that first Christmas from her perspective. As she described each part, other characters came onstage and told the story through dance, drama, and music. There were some soloists, a choir, a children’s choir, an African dance group, my ballet group, several actors, and exquisite costumes made by a volunteer who is a couture designer in Europe and came here at the perfect time. Seriously, God is good.


Schedules were packed and stress levels were raging (for the mzungus, anyway) in the days and hours leading up to the first performance. Our plan was to do three performances, one each on the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday before Christmas. Since this was the first time we had ever done something like this, we had no idea what kind of response to expect from the public. The man who organized most of the advertising said to expect about 300 people each night, and that prospect thrilled us. We made 900 small goodie bags as giveaways to last us all three performances.

But God had other plans.


Thursday afternoon, the crowd exceeded expectations. It not only surpassed the 300 people we hoped would come that day—it surpassed the 900 we hoped would come in all three days. I’m not sure how, but more than 1,000 people packed themselves into what used to seem like a spacious church to watch the show, after which all the children in attendance were given an Operation Christmas Child shoe box to take home.


The performance the next day was scheduled to take place at 5:00 p.m. By ten in the morning, there were already 200 people waiting outside the gate. I have no idea what they did all day. By the time afternoon rolled around, there were so many people waiting we decided to start early—and in Uganda, nothing starts early because no one shows up less than an hour late. Late, not early. Basically, hell froze over.


There were so many people waiting for the Friday show that we couldn’t fit them all in the church and had to turn hundreds and hundreds away. As a result, we decided to add another show on Saturday morning to give more people an opportunity to see it and hear the gospel. With two shows, Saturday turned into a long, chaotic day, but by the grace of God we managed.


After letting in as many as we could fit for the Saturday afternoon performance, there were so many people waiting outside the gate we talked of adding more shows on Sunday and Monday. We decided against it only because with two extra shows we still would not have been able to accommodate them all. There were 2,500 people waiting on that narrow dirt road.


So instead of putting on three shows with 300 people at each one, we ended up doing four shows with about 1,200 people at each. In three days, nearly 5,000 people from the surrounding villages came to our Noah’s Ark church to hear what Christmas is all about. I didn’t even know that many people lived within walking distance. We hardly knew how to process it. Further encouragement came the following Sunday when a few dozen new faces showed up at our church service.


All in all, God did so much more with this than we ever imagined. I am 100 percent thrilled it is finished and part of me never wants to do it again… but the other part of me already has a Word document labeled “Cantata 2015 Ideas.”

(Photo credit goes to Natalie, Ingrid, and Jacob, a wonderful volunteer family here for a few months.)

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

When Home Becomes


When home becomes a place you visit… what do you call it?

When I left for my freshman year of college, I didn’t think that would be the last time Morton—home—was where I lived. I thought I would be back. Good thing, because if I had known the reality in that move it would have been much more difficult. Of course, I have been back to Morton many times since then, but always for a visit on my way to whatever was next: camp, another year of school, Uganda. I call it home but I am rarely there.

A few weeks ago, I made the decision to visit home sooner than I had originally planned. (For those of you looking forward to a visit, I’m sorry but I have already come and gone. It was a trip with a mission and I did not make it known beforehand because I knew it would be too hard to refuse to see people. When I come back for a longer visit I will see more people and tell you ahead of time.) It was a bit of an awkward situation because while I came “home” to my country and culture, I did not go anywhere I have ever considered home. My two weeks were spent primarily in Chicago, in which I had spent maybe two or three days in my entire life. I am not a city girl. I don’t like concrete and I don’t like shopping. In many ways I felt like more of a tourist there than in Uganda.

When home becomes a place you talk about more than a place you experience… is it still home?

I love telling people stories about Morton. Talking about how my dad used to pick up Annie and me from the bus stop in the tractor so we could ride in the bucket back to the house never gets old. I tell the children about my house in the hills, the trails on which I run that can get even muddier than the ones here, and how everything goes silent with the first snowfall.

I also love telling people in America stories about Uganda. There are things that happen here that do not happen in the States, like when I go for a run at the same time a neighboring school lets out and I end up with ten children I have never met racing me down the red road. Or when I buy a long rope that becomes the best toy in my house and instead of one child playing elastics at a time I can fit a dozen between the verandah and myself. Every day lends itself to love and laughter.

What happens when home becomes a place my friends and family in America have never been?

When you fill out the customs card at the airport, they ask of which country you are a citizen and of which country you are a resident. This was the first time my answers were different. (Although to be honest, I’m still not one hundred percent sure I was supposed to put that I am a Ugandan resident after being here only four months, but no one seemed to notice or mind.) I went through the fast line in customs in Chicago because I was a returning citizen, and I went through the line labeled “Ugandans” in Entebbe because I work here. Now that I think about it, more people welcomed me home when I came back to Noah’s Ark than when I came back to America.

It’s tiresome. There are days when I desperately want to be in both places, and then there are days when I am fed up with both and want to be done going back and forth. There are not days when I want only one. I wish there were. But when home is where the heart is and my heart is in two places then I am always home and I am never home. It’s the “and” that gets hard to handle.

Perhaps this is the most American part of me—I want it all! I want America and Uganda. I want to upgrade to two homes I can have at one time. I want to teach P.7 students at New Horizon during the day and come home and cook supper with Aaron in the evenings. I want to run on dirt roads between sugar cane fields and visit my godchildren once a week. I want to minister to my Ugandan family at Noah’s Ark and be surrounded by my friends and family who have been with me from the beginning. Damn geography.

When home becomes a place where I get the biggest hugs from the shortest arms…

When home becomes a place where my feet turn red by the end of each day (or at the beginning if I haven’t swept in awhile)…

When home becomes a place where the teenagers can fix my electrical problems and the toddlers know the best spot on my shoulder to rest their heads…

Perhaps I will reevaluate this every time I go back and forth between Uganda and America. (You can read a similar post from almost exactly one year ago: The Heartache of Home) Or perhaps over time it will get easier and the world will seem a little smaller and the differences won’t bother me so much. Or perhaps I will grit my teeth every time I make the transition and keep reminding myself that someday—someday—I will get to go home to a place that doesn’t make me grit my teeth and one I will never want to leave. What a welcome home that will be.







Friday, October 31, 2014

Hippos in English Class


The seven of us were sitting in the primary school library, my six students quietly working on their compositions while I prepared some extra work for them to take home. Sun streamed through the pane-less windows. Fortunately, it was a bright morning and the sunlight was adequate, as only half the lights in the library work and the ones that do flicker incessantly and emit such a disruptive buzzing sound I swear it rattles the brains inside our heads.

Before long, the silence faded into the usual muttering. I waited for it to abate, and when it did not, looked up from my work to reprimand the source of the talking. Immediately Sebide caught me eye from across the room, an uncomfortable and slightly mischievous smile on his face.

“Yes, Sebide?” I asked.

“Auntie Katie… that thing is disturbing me,” he said. He gestured to the top of a bookshelf, where a brown stuffed hippo sat oh his hind legs, happily supervising our English class. “He keeps looking at me.”

Sebide was grinning now, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and grin back. I reached up and rotated the hippo so he was no longer staring at him.

“Is that better?” I asked with a laugh. Sebide nodded and went right back to work, satisfied. I sat down on my bench and had only just picked up my pen when the silence was broken once more.

“Auntie Katie, now it’s looking at me.” This time it was Boaz, who indeed happened to be sitting in the animal’s direct line of sight.

“Me too,” chimed in Ivan. “I don’t like it.”

“Are you telling me,” I said to the class, “that not one of you likes this poor happy hippo?” They stared at me and said nothing. Taking their silence as a no, I removed the hippo from the top shelf and placed him face down on a row of books, out of sight of the students.

“If his crying disturbs you, don’t complain to me,” I said. “It’s not my fault he’s uncomfortable and unloved. Hippos are one of my best animals.”

“I know a song about a hippo,” said Ivan.

“Me too!” I replied.

“Teach it to us!” cried Sebide, Ivan, and Immaculate in unison.

I laughed, glad for their enthusiasm. “You can learn it when I take you this afternoon. For now, finish your compositions and make sure they are at least one hundred words.”

They politely worked the rest of the period. At the end I sent them back to class, but not before I made Sebide hug the hippo and apologize for making him hide on a shelf for so long. He obliged.

When the students had left, I sat down and scratched out my lesson plan for that afternoon, replacing it with an entire English lesson based on the hippo song. It turns out being a teacher is kind of fun.

At the end of second term, the P.7 students took a mock Primary Leaving Examination to assess their readiness for the real exam that would conclude their primary education. The results were… well, if I had been their teacher at that point the results would have made me cry. The majority of the class failed. And when I say majority, I don’t mean just over half—I mean very nearly all of them. It was appalling.

As a result, measures were taken to get all the P.7 students some extra help this term. Their school day was extended by an hour-and-a-half, which meant they were to arrive at 7:30 in the morning and stay until 5:00 in the evening. Their music, drama, computer, and PE classes were cancelled and replaced with only subjects that would appear on the exam: social studies, religious education, science, math, and English. On top of that, each night of the week a teacher or volunteer gave extra help with a different subject to the students who live in the compound. Honestly, I’m not sure how they made it through each long day.

My assistance looked slightly different. Instead of offering help outside of class, I identified the six students with the lowest English scores and took them during every grammar and comprehension class all term. I used the mock exam as a guide for planning lessons around the parts with which they struggled… which was everything. It would have been impossible to teach them all they needed to know in two months (this exam measures years’ worth of education), but we focused on a few things that I hope and pray will boost their scores on the upcoming PLE.

I will admit, it was a rough start at the beginning of term. Those six knew I was taking them because they failed English, and being singled out for a reason like that, though not made public, did not sit well with them. However, as days and weeks passed they opened up, I became more comfortable and confident, and we ended up having a lot of fun. The hippo disruption was one of many humorous moments in English class. This group of students was truly a joy to teach.

I met Ivan on our first day of class together. He is a hard worker who loves to read our work aloud and does a very good job of it. He is quick to help others when they stumble over words or pronunciations and is often the first to offer an answer in class. His effort and success in what we did often made me grateful for his presence in our group.

Sebide is a tall, muscular goofball. At fourteen years old it is probably inappropriate for me to call him a goofball, but that’s what he is and I told him so several times this term. He has a broad smile and is quick to show it whether he is happy, confused, or embarrassed. Many topics were hit or miss when it came to his understanding of them, but on our last day together he provided a grammar answer that made me quite proud of his effort and accomplishment.

Immaculate is a sunny sort of girl who does good work when she is not aloof. Whenever I explained something to the class or to her individually, she responded with a smile whether or not she understood. Rather unhelpful, but encouraging all the same. She was the second best in my class.

Francis is a boy with whom I worked on reading and spelling last term. Though never officially tested or diagnosed, Marilyn and I are sure he is dyslexic. His reading is poor and his grammar is worse, but when we moved on to comprehension he shone in a way I had not seen before. The examination will be harder for him than for most people, but if he doesn’t give up he has a chance of improving his score.

Boaz is repeating P.7 this year. He went to a different school last year and failed his PLE. From what I have been told, his mother brought him to Noah’s Ark at the beginning of this year to try to enroll him in the vocational school without the secondary school aspect. Piet said no. With Boaz standing right next to her, she told Piet her son was stupid and couldn’t learn. We are trying to combat that thinking and prove the opposite. I suspect Boaz has ADHD based on his high level of distractibility and his inability to focus, but if he can pay attention to the exam for a full two hours he can do well.

Sharon is my brightest and most responsible student. Aside from our regular classwork, she has been completing an extra worksheet nearly every day. I have been scrambling to keep up with her demand. I worked with her when I was here last year and she had always seemed grumpy or too stuck up to give me the time of day. This term, however, I soon discovered that all she needs to get her going is a bit of positive reinforcement and encouragement. She wants to learn, and I love that.

Here is the goal of this long-winded post: These students need your prayers. Yesterday was our last day together and on Monday and Tuesday they will sit for their PLE. If they fail this exam, it will mean the end of their academic education for life, and at the age of fourteen that is a lot to swallow. I don’t expect them to get perfect marks or pass with flying colors, but I hope with all my heart that they can go on to secondary school if they so choose. So please, please, keep Ivan, Sebide, Immaculate, Francis, Boaz and Sharon in your prayers for the next few days as they take this exam that can determine a great deal of their future.


Saturday, October 18, 2014

Baby Katie


When we hit a speed bump without slowing down one bit, I bounced so far out of my seat I feared my head would hit the ceiling. I landed and clung with both hands to the fold-out bench in the back of the ambulance, wishing seatbelts were more common in Uganda. Piet apologized for not seeing the speed bump in time and we continued on.

Blue lights flashing and siren on, he tried to maneuver his way into Kampala, but for some unknown reason traffic was horrendous at 11:00 p.m. that night. I lurched sideways every time he hit the break and tried not to slide on the bench when he accelerated. This direction, Pita and I were along for the ride. My fingers were sore from gripping the seat. How on earth was I going to hold a baby on the way back?

When I had volunteered to come along two hours ago, I didn’t realize I was in for such a rough ride. Pita must be used to this by now, having done it more than 150 times. But she gets to sit in the front seat, which is a real seat.

At the eastern edge of Kampala (from what I could tell, not being familiar with the city), we pulled a U-turn to get to the police station on our right. I hopped out the back of the ambulance, glad for a chance to stretch my tense legs, and looked up at the simple brick building. The three of us quickly ascended the steps and went inside. Piet and Pita greeted the police officers by name. Meanwhile, I quietly soaked in my surroundings, never having been there before.

On the left stood a counter with several large books I imagined were for recording police business. Somewhere behind the counter was a wooden table and a clock was mounted on the wall straight in front of me. The room was lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Its light did little to illuminate anything not immediately underneath, much less the corners of the dark room.

The policeman gestured behind the counter and we walked around the counter and table to see the children we were there to collect. A teenage boy lay on the ground covered in a blanket. His eyes were open, but he made no movement and his face was expressionless. Pita and I looked at each other in confusion. We were supposed to be picking up a six-month-old boy and a one-and-a-half-year-old girl. How did they get it this wrong?

Then we noticed the small lumps next to him. Two babies were fast asleep on the floor, also covered by a dirty blanket. Pita wasted no time in gathering one into her arms and laying it gently on the table. She clearly had a routine. After putting on a diaper and clean clothes, she handed the little girl to me and proceeded to the next baby, a boy. It was not long before we had them both wrapped in clean blankets and loving arms.

Piet signed a book at the counter—apparently the only paperwork necessary to take a child back with us—and gave the police some necessary information. When the officers asked what they wanted to put down as the babies’ names, Pita looked at me. “How do you spell your name?” she asked. Thinking they needed my name on the list of who took the children, I spelled it out for her. She turned back to the policemen and said, “The girl is Katie and the boy is Colin.” And that was that. I had a namesake.

Piet helped me reenter the back of the ambulance and I tried to situate myself as securely as possible with one hand. Katie didn’t make a sound, but her large eyes stared up at me from the hole in her blanket cocoon. I stared right back, unable to tear my eyes from hers.

The hour-long drive back to Noah’s Ark was nearly as bumpy as the first. Piet once again failed to see the speed bump, but I clutched Katie tightly and neither of us went flying too far. Somehow, amidst the blue lights and bumps and strange mzungus, Katie fell asleep. Her eyelids fluttered open whenever we hit a particularly rough patch, but never for long. Her ability to rest surprised me so much that I kept checking to make sure she was breathing. Neither she nor her brother looked sick or malnourished like so many children who come, but nevertheless I prayed to God that she would stay alive until we reached Noah’s Ark and could take a better look at her.

When we finally made it back to the compound, Pita and I took the babies to her house for bathing, pajamas, and a midnight snack. I sat Katie on my lap and tried to feed her from the sippie cup of juice Pita had provided. She kept pushing it away, unwilling to put her face near it.

“She’s probably never seen a cup like that,” Piet said, removing the lid. At that, Katie grabbed for it with both hands and gulped down every bit of the juice, barely giving herself time to breathe. Anytime I attempted to help, she swatted my hands away. My mom would have called her an independent little cuss.

After juice, we gave her a biscuit, on which she nibbled enthusiastically. When she was halfway finished, Piet held out his hand as if asking her to give it to him. He wanted to see how trusting she was, both with food and with him. Katie hesitated for a moment, then placed the biscuit gingerly into his hand. He pulled it to his mouth and comically began pretending to eat it, then handed it back to her. It quickly became a game. She would eat for a moment, then offer it back to Piet, who gobbled up air and returned the biscuit.

It was hard for me to surrender Katie to Piet and Pita as I left their house late that night. I couldn’t wait to come back the next day and see how my little girl was. My heart was full and my mind was reeling. Who would give up such children? What had happened?

All the police knew was that Katie and Colin had been found on someone’s front doorstep. They had been well fed, as was evidenced by their healthy bodies. They were used to getting attention, as I could see when I started playing with Katie the next day. These children had been well cared for. Why had they been abandoned?

Our first guess was that they had been stolen from their mother. Nothing else seemed to explain how they could be cared for one day and abandoned the next. We hoped—and still hope—to hear from their loving family who will rejoice in having found them.

However, they have been here nearly two months and we have had no word from anyone looking for their children. Our more recent speculation is that their mother is no longer with either father (the children don’t look alike so we guess they are only half siblings) and that her new man didn’t want the children. This is common in Uganda. A man wants to raise his own children, not the offspring of some other man. In an instinctual way it makes sense, although I still find it shocking that a man would ask such a thing of a woman. What I find even more shocking, however, is that a woman will agree to it. I can’t imagine raising a child for eighteen months and then leaving her on a stranger’s doorstep because my new boyfriend told me to. Again, it is only a speculation. We don’t know the whole story, and, like so many others, maybe we never will.

Katie is adapting to life at Noah’s Ark day by day. The independent little cuss wouldn’t let anyone help feed her in the baby section and within two weeks they had moved her to the toddler rooms. She doesn’t speak yet, but sure knows how to sing and dance. She laughs the hardest when I turn her upside-down and bury my face in her chocolate-colored stomach. Small tangibles like popsicle sticks or uncooked beans can keep her occupied for an hour. She was bald when she arrived, but now her hair is growing in tiny ringlets, although I doubt she’ll ever have the soft curls of her little brother.

If you are interested in sponsoring precious Baby Katie, send me an email (katie.schinnell@gmail.com) and I will give you the necessary information. Each child from the home has up to six sponsors to cover the cost of food, clothing, caregivers, medical expenses, and anything else that may come up in her life as she grows up. Even more so, she can use prayers both for her family to come for her and Colin and for them to continue adjusting to life at Noah’s Ark and to be well loved here.