Leaving Mbale, leaving Uganda

---

Leaving Mbale was strange; sitting in the car, feeling like I was getting sucked back through the worm-hole I took to get there, which at the time felt like I was burrowing deep into some unreachable depth of Africa. Now I rushed quickly backward back through the same pathway I used to come, being pulled by some invisible force. Like a scene from Being John Malkovich - perceptions altered, tunnel vision. Seeing the country side with new eyes, eyes that know what each house and structure is, what each barefoot child is doing, how the goats and cows are cared for and valued, the plight of women - carrying water, wood, babies. But not knowing why...
Why the situation is like it is, Why it ended up this way, Why Africa is poor and the US rich, why the Irish have left their famines behind, but they continue ravishing the people here. They were never the same, these two worlds, and they are on different paths. Can those paths ever meet? Is it to be wished? What can we hope for? What is the picture we would like to see? Can we hope for each child everywhere to be able to play, eat, sleep, and love without fear or illness? Can we hope each child can go to school? Maybe we can hope for health systems, economic investment, job creation, and schooling? All these people can't be turned into suburbanites with Ford Explorers and Little League, but maybe they could hope for shoes and clothes that aren't torn?
But how is this to be achieved? Not with charity. Charity can help, but as a community and society, it can't sustain million / billions... It has to be a movement ... it has to come from within.

---

Photos

bye Simon & Margaret!
(and all their kids)