An Open Hand

One thing I love about talking with the other volunteers is the perspective we gain from those conversations and the perspective we share, being from the western world. (Okay, that was two. I’m an English major, not a math whiz.) All of us volunteers are asking the same questions and seeking the same thing in all our different ways… how do we help?

We are all here because we want to help in one way or another. We want to help put together the pieces that will give these children a hope and a future. In fact, we want that for all Ugandans, not just those who come through Noah’s Ark. But what will make a difference and where do we start?

Before coming, I had it in my mind that all Africans worked very hard to provide for themselves and their families and only took our assistance when they couldn’t possibly make ends meet on their own. For many people, that really is the case. There are women who work two jobs just so they can afford to send one child to school. There are aunties here, like Jessica, who works her butt off everyday and lives in a small room on the compound, spending years trying to save up enough money to build a house for her and her family.

Ineka, another volunteer, met a man who made a living baking bread. He admitted he didn’t know a thing about bread baking when he started and his bread certainly wasn’t the best on the market. However, he was creative and gave customers a little something extra—every time they bought bread from him, he sang them a song. With that strategy, he was able to sell enough bread to save enough money to get training in a better job later on and secure a better future for himself… because he worked hard.

But then there are people who know there are lots of people who want to help, who know that help often comes in the form of handouts, and who rely on that as their primary means of supporting themselves and their families. It is not uncommon for people here to have big families. This is both a symbol of status and, I suspect, the result of a lack of entertainment or things outside the home to occupy their time.

In the western world, we generally limit the number of children we have based on our ability (often financial) to raise them, care for them, and offer a good future. Big families are rare because with the cost of living, how could we raise ten kids? How could we send them to college? These are things people consider before even getting pregnant! In Uganda, however, they know that if they have many children, some organization will find them many sponsors and their kids will be able to go to school, be fed lunch everyday, and get birthday and Christmas presents. Why not have more kids if it won’t cost you anything?

Before volunteering here, Sara spent two weeks in a refugee camp in Sudan. The conditions were atrocious by our standards and these people had been there for something like five years. She said none of them tried to leave or pursue a better life because at the camp they were handed food to eat everyday. Of course someone had to worry about where that food was coming from (What a big job that would be!), but it wasn’t them, so being there was better than the uncertainty of being somewhere else. They also kept having babies and kept having babies and kept having babies, brining more and more people into the miserable situation.

A Ugandan recently vented to Ineka on a taxi ride. He was frustrated with the government for not putting more emphasis on education and providing good schools. He said that as well-intentioned as people around the world are, instead of helping pull Africa onto its own two feet, we are teaching Africans to sit down and hold out an open hand. Eventually we will come fill it.

Education is the key. However, the downside to focusing on education is that it will take a long time to see results. Several generations for lasting change. If we want to simply feed the hungry so they don’t starve, we can give them food today and they will still be alive tomorrow. But what does tomorrow hold for them? Waiting for another handout to postpone death by one more day? I’m not saying these people don’t matter or that they might as well die right away, but wouldn’t it be better to pour our resources into something more permanent?

If we educate someone today, she will not change the face of Uganda tomorrow. She will not have all the answers in a year. Ten years down the road, thousand and thousands of children-dead-from-starvation later, things might not be that much different. But in her lifetime, she will become more than a mother of ten. She will become more than a woman who sits at a fruit stand. She will become more than a prostitute.

Maybe she will become a midwife and help reduce the number of women who die in childbirth in her home village. Maybe she will become an agriculturalist and teach people how to get the most out of their land and take care of it so many people have more efficient farms and can make better futures for themselves as well. Maybe she will become a teacher and inspire other children to grow in knowledge and understanding so they too can grow up and work hard and multiply their efforts—and think of how much that would multiply hers!

Yes, education is so important, but how do we educate people without making that a handout as well? If a parent has a lot of kids, knowing they will rely on sponsors for their entire schooling, do we trust that the kids will become smart enough to not make the same poor choices? Is there any option that will not reinforce the poor choices of the parents, while at the same time not punish the children for their parents’ decisions?

How do we share our resources enough to make sure needs are met all over the world but hold back enough so that those who need help are challenged to put in some effort themselves?

I have had many people, both children and adults, say they want to come back to America with me in December. I was warned about that beforehand and even though they are all serious in their desire, I doubt any of them hold a real expectation. It seems to me that the people who don’t want to live like this want to leave. They don’t try to make change happen here. Maybe they don’t think change can happen here. How could they imagine a large-scale or long-term change if they have a hard time seeing past tomorrow?

It would make sense why they might have such a hard time seeing the big picture. At any point in their lives, how many of them have any sort of capacity to affect the big picture? They can’t send money to an improve-the-schools-in-Uganda organization when they can barely afford to send their own children to school. They can’t travel around teaching entire communities about AIDS prevention and treatment when they spend all their time caring for a sick family member. They can’t donate food to a famine relief organization when they barely have enough food for themselves and give any extra to their lame neighbor.

But doesn’t everything large scale start small scale? We wouldn’t need organizations to feed the hungry if everyone took care of their neighbor in need. Would the neighbor be less likely to complacently hold out an open hand if it was someone he knew helping him and not some stranger, a faceless entity? Would he be inspired to try harder if he could see the person helping him working hard?

We all want to help, but we are much less helpful than we think.