And On the 68th Day, Katie Rested

For those of you who know me (which in all reality is probably all of you because why else would you be reading this), I’m sure you have noticed that resting is not always my strong point.

Huh. One sentence in and I already sound like I am trying to deceive you.

To put it more honestly, I don’t like to rest. I am not good at it. It is not always my strong point because I have rarely made it a priority because I don’t like it.

I don’t take naps. They seem like a waste of perfectly good daylight.

When jogging, I try not to stop mid-run. So great is the effort of coaxing my legs back into a run that it is rarely worth the break.

At camp and at Noah’s Ark, there are always a thousand and one things to do on any given day, so why not take care of some of them right now? No point in waiting, right?

Wrong. Or so I hear.

A friend from home once said he thought people could accomplish far more in five working days with two days of rest than they could in seven straight working days every week. It makes sense in theory, but who has time to put it into practice when my To Do list sits on my desk even during the weekend?

Last time I was here, Warwick and Marilyn urged me to get away from Noah’s Ark once in awhile. Go out the gate. Leave the compound. Go somewhere quiet. (Are there quiet places in Uganda?) They get away for a few days every six weeks or so to rest and refuel before jumping back into the thick of school and ministry and sorting shoes. I understood their point, but since I was here alone the options looked fairly limited and lonely. Leaving the compound was a stressful experience because I was never one hundred percent sure I would find my way back in one piece. I did not want to drag out that stress for a whole day or—gasp—overnight.

This time, they continued their mantra about me needing to get away, but I came up with loads of valid excuses. I may only be here a few weeks, so I don’t need a break in that short amount of time. The term is almost over and I want to utilize the last few weeks with my reading students. I need to plan the holiday program. I need to learn how to run the holiday program.

However, by the end of the holiday I was… pooped, to put it not-so-eloquently. I was embarrassed to admit how much that four-week program took out of me. Fortunately, I didn’t have to admit it to anyone. The day after the program ended, Warwick and Marilyn looked at my defeated face and invited me to accompany them on their trip to Jinja the following Monday.

Not surprisingly, I began vomiting excuses right away. We are going to start Teen Club this week and still have to plan. I need to read through a book and plan the curriculum for Bible Class before Sunday. The students are back at school, so I should be there too so we don’t waste precious time for learning.

In the end, however, I accepted the invitation and two days later embarked upon my first ever trip to the town of Jinja.

Sorry, I am laughing at myself right now. I make it sound like an epic adventure. In reality, we drove one-and-a-half hours so we could sit or lie down for extended periods of time without having to get up. Which was exactly the sort of adventure we needed.

The resort at which we stayed was called Holland Park. (There are a lot of Dutch people in Uganda. I find it somewhat intriguing, but mostly it makes me go “huh” a lot.) The place seemed to be in the general direction of the middle of nowhere, or so I thought as we drove along a bumpy dirt road through small brick houses and gardens. (I mean, we didn’t actually drive through the houses and gardens—not over the vegetables or anything. We were on the road and there were houses and gardens on each side… whatever…)

As soon as we drove through the gate, however, I saw grass—real live grass—and beyond that, the Nile. Right there. Blue and wet and everything. Turns out Holland Park might be strategically located.

We parked next to a small white cottage with Adirondack chairs on the verandah and began unpacking the car. Within five minutes, I was convinced that rest is, in fact, a glorious thing and knew this was exactly what I needed. We ate lunch and then spent the next several hours in the shade of the verandah not working. Looking out over the still Nile and reading my five hundred-page book about a theologian who was killed for trying to assassinate Hitler was a beautiful repose from the heavy chaos of Noah’s Ark.

Later that afternoon, I wandered over to the pool—a quiet, outdoor, stonework-covered infinity pool where, if you put your face at the edge of the water, looks like you are swimming in the Nile itself. After a few minutes of swimming, I hoisted myself onto the ledge separating the pool from the water-catching part (the official name, I am sure) and lay there, letting the water cool one side of me while the sun burnt the other. Never in my six months in Uganda have I listened so hard and heard so little. Most people would have closed their eyes and fallen asleep, but I kept mine wide open because even the sight was peaceful. Looking out over a small field of grass to trees scattered with birds and behind them the Nile slipping past us on its way north… it was wonderful. It was restful. And I liked it.

That night, Marilyn and I sat on the verandah and watched the moon ascend the dark expanse of sky while we talked for hours about Noah’s Ark and family and monkeys and support raising until Warwick invited us inside for hot cocoa. The next day, we drove into Jinja and bought groceries, drank MILKSHAKES, went to a craft market, and finished with supper at a Chinese restaurant where I ordered something so spicy it made my upper lip sweat just smelling it. The next morning I made sure to tiptoe downstairs and outside in time to watch the sun rise over the Nile before taking a taxi home later that morning.

As I said goodbye to Warwick and Marilyn (who were staying another night), Marilyn looked at my face and said, “You look better.” I felt better. Apparently rest is not so bad after all. 

The Holiday Program

I always expected working at Lake Waubesa Bible Camp would prepare me in some way for overseas missions. I learned how to share my testimony, how to relate to different ages of children and youth, became more confident speaking in front of a large group, and at least in part conquered my fear of leading real, live people in worship. What I did not expect, however, was that in doing overseas missions it would be helpful to know how to play Tube City. I did not think I would need to keep half a dozen action songs in the back of my mind to occupy idle bodies while we wait for a movie. Neither did I anticipate preparing crafts until the wee hours of the morning. And I certainly did not expect to spend hour after hour drafting schedules so as to include all the necessary activities and all the available staff and volunteers at the appropriate times and with the appropriate age children and for activities for which they will be excited… No, I simply did not see that coming.

Apparently, every Nursery and Primary School aged child at Noah’s Ark participates in a holiday program when they have breaks from school. I say apparently because before I arrived this time I knew very little about the program itself. So little, in fact, that I cannot recall if I even knew there was a program. Hence my slight surprise when, three days after my arrival, Piet told me he wanted me to take over leadership of the program in place of a missionary who would soon be leaving.

Trying to step up to the primary leadership role of a program I had never seen was… interesting. I was immensely blessed by both the missionary who had started the program five years ago and one of the Noah’s Ark workers who has been running it for the past two holidays. We sat down and had meetings where they did their best to try to explain the atmosphere and chaos of holiday time, the expectations of children and staff, and obstacles I was likely to face in the four-week break from school. As the end of term loomed closer, I felt completely unprepared but was ready to put an end to theory and see it all for myself.

The school year in Uganda begins in February. There are three twelve-week terms with a four-week break after Term 1 and again after Term 2. Term 3 ends at the beginning of December, which is the start of the long holiday between school years. My first holiday of four weeks can be considered a warm-up for the longer holiday that extends over Christmas.

For the program, the Nursery and Primary School children (of which there are slightly more than one hundred) are divided by age into five groups. Every week, each group has one craft, one game time, and one extra activity. Activities for the youngest two groups usually involved something like playing in the sandbox or making body outlines with sidewalk chalk, while the oldest three groups had a movie or game night. Along with that, we took the oldest three groups swimming at a nearby pool, one group per week for three weeks.

Week One, I was along for the ride… mostly. I worked alongside Hilda, who has been running the program recently and who organized the first week so I could see things in action before being the one to put them into action. I had a few responsibilities, participated in every activity, and followed Hilda around between times with children, preparing and learning what goes on behind-the-scenes. Week Two, I took on a few more responsibilities and became more familiar with the schedule and children. Week Three, Hilda took her leave; therefore, my role was significantly larger. I had a co-leader, but at that point I was the one enlisting her help instead of the other way around. By Week Four, I had a firm grasp on what was happening and no longer found it awkward to delegate, organize, and tell people what to do. Not too awkward, anyway. I realized the level of my responsibility as I was filling out some paperwork one day. Unsure of whose signature I needed for the “Head of Department” line, I turned to Piet, who straightaway replied, “That’s you!”

Aside from overseeing, general planning, and delegating, much of my time was spent preparing games and crafts for the eldest two groups. I quickly learned that not every game I had found successful with American children could translate well to Ugandan children. There were a lot of failures. However, Piet recently told us that true leaders make plenty of mistakes, so I took that information to heart. We did water relays, balloon games, different kinds of races, skipping ropes, hide-and-seek, and many other games. We ended the holiday with a scavenger hunt around the whole compound, which, to my surprise, ended with a smile on nearly every face.

 The most sizeable craft project I took on was teaching a small group of children how to make piñatas. Having only made one in my life, and that being nearly ten years ago, it was probably foolish of me to offer it as a craft before experimenting with it myself. I spent three days making a rough model in my house, collected copious amounts of newspaper and wallpaper paste, and prayed. Somehow—I’m still not sure how this happened, but I suspect it had something to do with the praying—over the course of three weeks we ended up with five piñatas that were not only beautiful, but functional as well. As a culmination of the holiday, we had a disco on the last Friday and children took turns beating the piñatas until we were showered with sweeties and confetti. (Annie, spending hours tearing colored paper into confetti made me sorely miss you and our New Year preparations.)

Looking back (you know, because a week-and-a-half ago takes some serious memory and concentration), here were my five favorite parts of the holiday program:

1    1.  Swimming once a week. For one, I like to swim. For two (Is that how you say it? Sometimes I can’t believe English is my native language.), the children like to swim. Well, they like to play in the water. Some of them know how to swim. Every week, I could spend half a day splashing and playing and carrying children on my back and teaching the older ones how to do somersaults in the water. I ended every one of those days in the good kind of exhaustion.

2       2.  Learning the names of more children. What a privilege to spend several hours each week with nearly every child here at Noah’s Ark. That is something I don’t get to do during the school term.

3    3.  The rush of the Nursery School children when they came for activities. Collectively, they reminded me of an ocean wave: I could always hear them coming before I could see them, once they were in sight I knew there was no escaping, and a few would pass by while the rest gathered at my knees and, if one of them had recently wet his or her pants, even got me a little wet.

4    4.  The excitement of my piñata group when I told them they could burst my sample before the disco. They had been gravely disappointed when I told them the piñatas were to be used for the disco, not only for our group. It took four of them with three swings each to make a hole and no one was hit with the stick. Though they all scrambled for the sweeties, they proceeded to sit down at a nearby picnic table and divide them evenly, giving the odd extras to the leaders. What a group!

5    5.  The end of the holiday. I couldn’t believe how drained I was after four weeks of this program when I am used to doing eight weeks every summer. I found it is significantly different, however, to put on a different program for the same children every week than it is to put on the same program for different children every week.

All in all, this holiday was a valuable learning experience. Yes, I was relieved when it ended, but not more than two days after our final disco, I was already jotting down craft and game ideas for next time. I never thought I would be running camp in Africa. Good one, God.