Many months have gone by since I’ve posted new entries to the blog. And in those months, much has happened. Since the dreary days of January when I questioned the point of the work I’m doing in Uganda, spring came, and new seeds of hope were planted. And as summer is upon us, so too are the full blooms of our renewed spirit.

After a harrowing winter, my spirit and commitment has been renewed and reinforced. Often it takes those bleak moments to remind us of what is important. To make us stronger. To teach us new and valuable lessons. And to motivate us to continue. Together we grow stronger. And that is how it’s been for us in the Acholi Quarter and with Project Have Hope.

We’ve learned new and better ways to work together with the singular purpose of making a difference boldly imprinted in our minds and our hearts.

Now, 2 and half years into this, I can proudly say that we’ve paid the school fees for 85 children to attend school. But the most profound success for me is the adult literacy program, which started in January, and has flourished to 32 eager students. These are just a couple of our many achievements.

Beyond these successes, are friendships that have been forged. Friendships formed through understanding and respect. Through working together, hand in hand, side by side. Always remembering to take one step forward and not worrying how big that step is.

In May, while I was back in Uganda, Aketch Rebecca, the teacher of the adult literacy class, shared with me the words of one of the students. “Thank you for taking us from nowhere to somewhere.”

Two years into this now and it’s hard for me to assess whether what I’ve done, what I’ve tried to do, counterbalances the problems caused by the work I’m doing.

A group of women that originally numbered 55, but swelled to 100 in my initial absence. Each with extraordinary needs that can never be met. Each with emotional baggage that can never be dismissed. Each living within the larger community that equally needs my help (any help, really). And each who thinks I can solve all of their problems and financial woes.

Children whispering to me that their caregiver (mother, father, aunt, grandfather …) wants to see me - just more requests for help I cannot give. Thrusted into my hands, sealed envelopes with letters:

Dear Karen,
Through this letter am kindly requesting you to assist me. Sponsor the daughter of my late brother who died in the northern insurgency. So did both parents …

More requests for assistance I can’t possibly give. Women ushering me into their homes, pleading with me for the opportunity to join the already impossibly large group of “members” I’m trying to support. Some women simply opening large bags filled with paper beads, begging me to take them with me and bring the money back on my next visit.

So many people, everyday, pulling at me, pleading for my assistance. Some outright angered by my inability to help, my standard line, “There are so many people, too many people, who need help. I am just one person, I can’t help everyone.” Angerly they reply, “But why can’t you help ME? Why can’t you just allow one more member in your group?” One more, two more, 100 more. Do they not hear the pleas that are murmured into my ear even in my sleep.

They see my white skin. They see the money I’ve brought into the community. They do not see the work that goes into raising that money. They are blind to the rising requests of their neighbors. Or perhaps, not blind to it, just pleading their own case, thinking for a multitude of reasons that I should be able to help them, if no one else.

Others are less demanding. They just want the opportunity to talk to me, to tell me their problems. One elderly man, crippled and caring for his orphaned granddaughter explains how he is now the sole provider for her and can’t pay her school fees. He implores me to help. I have no money left. I’m unable to do anything. I tell him so. Then I finish with, “I’m sorry.” How many times a day do I say ‘I’m sorry’ to the pleading faces and soundless voices of the Quarter? The elderly man doesn’t seem to mind. “At least I’ve told you my problems. Now I feel better. I know you will remember and maybe next year you can help.”

I leave his home to be ushered into another home with a similar request. “I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I’m sorry.”

And in all this, in trying to help, I face the magnitude of difficulties which come from both trying to lead a large, sprawling group and being a mzungu, a foreigner who will never be capable of administering all the polite social intricacies which are vital to them. A mass of people, entrenched in poverty, limited futures and wretched pasts, offer each other, and all outsiders, curtsies with warm, inviting handshakes. Gestures of gentility and politeness that don’t exist in my world. No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to duplicate their polite ways. I will always be the foreigner, the mzungu, that bemuses them, dispensing the lackluster, useless, notion of hope.

The last 2 weeks of this trip have been altogether brutal. Leadership issues. Infighting within the group. One angered voice, in particular, berating me for not selectng another one of her children for whom to pay school fees. Nevermind that I’m already sending one of the children in her care to boarding school and there are many members who are not so fortunate. This singular voice loudly proclaiming the injustice I’ve done to her.

How dare I try to undo the lopsided distribution of benefits to fairly benefit all members? How dare I not just hand over the money for them to dispense at will? “How dare I,” seems to be the murmurs that follow me as more requests, demands actually, are made of me.

With all of this, and so much more, escalating daily, I was ready to withdrawal. Simply say, “Farewell, sorry I couldn’t do more, goodbye.” One voice pleaded with me to be strong. Have courage. Another voice pleaded, “Think of the children.” I walked through the Quarter, resigned to the fact that I could no longer help, that my presece seemed to cause problems, too many problems. I should leave. As I walked, I was stopped by Kibwota Wilfred. While I’m in Uganda, he always seems to be lurking somewhere, partially hidden, watching me. One day earlier in this trip, we spent over an hour together playing toss and monkey in the middle with a red balloon until it finally burst into too many tiny pieces that the game ended abruptly.

On this day, Kibwota Wilfred greeted me and took me by the hand to show me the nursery garden he was helping his aunt to care for. One of the nursery gardens we had just built. He smiled with pride. This boy, this sweet boy who had been abducted by rebels at age 9, orphaned, and finally escaped his captors, is now in the care of his aunt. This boy stood by my side, smiling, holding my hand. How could I abandon him? How could I abandon all the other helpless innocents in the Quarter? How could I let a few people with bad hearts and evil words take away the little I had to offer? I couldn’t bear to simply say goodbye. I may only have little to offer, but that little is at least appreciated by some. By Wilfred, who held my hand.

This morning as my boda boda started the ascent into the Quarter, I noticed the door to Creamland School was open. I had not yet had a chance this trip to greet Alex, the amazing man who started the school, so I popped off the boda boda and headed into the school. Soon his smiling face and warm embrace greeted me.

We spoke about the many new improvements he’s made to the school and about his philosophy on education and on life. Alex is truly an amazing and inspiring individual. If there were more “Alex’s” Uganda’s entire populace would be educated. He is gifted, steadfast and truly concerned about giving children the opportunities he did not receive. As he passionately spoke, I wanted to take out my recorder and record every word he said. I resisted. Instead, I tried hard to remember each powerful remark uttered.

I told him of my plan to hire a teacher and start educating a group of the women from Project Have Hope who had never stepped inside a classroom. I told him how I was looking for a teacher who could speak Acholi and teach them to write their names so they’d no longer need to sign my using their thumb print, teach them to add, so they could properly count money. Alex offered lots of practical advice and once again, demonstrating his true zeal for universal education, offered to find me a teacher, determine the educational tools needed, and help to initiate the program. He told me to come by Monday morning and he would have things prepared. Before I leave on the 19th, he anticipates classes will have started. That’s extraordinary! That would be a feat anywhere, but in Uganda where everything runs on African time and the unexpected is simply expected, it would be unimaginable to start a program so quickly! I left the school with a smile on my face and a bounce to my step as I ascended the steep climb into the Quarter.

As I climbed, I saw a group of our members gathered outside of the PHH building. A sense of dread overwhelmed me. What was the crisis? What was wrong? I quickened my step. As I got closer, I saw a man talking to the group. I breathed in relief. That must be Gerard, Grace’s son, who was going to come to the Quarter today to discuss building nursery gardens for our new program aimed at building balcony gardens. I approached the group just as Gerard was finishing his outdoor talk and was leading them into the building to continue his lecture.

The women sat listening, eager to learn. Responding with questions. Nodding and replying with understanding. After the last few days of frustration, tears filled the corner of my eyes. I’ve never felt so happy. For the first moment, perhaps in my life, I really felt like I could make a difference … that I was making a difference.

This is empowerment. This is working together. This is the key to impacting the future. Educating a child is important, but sometimes I wonder how effective it is. Will I be able to continue the childrens’ education long enough to really help them? If I’m able to do that, will there be jobs for them in this country of wide-scale unemployment? I have to hope, but in 20 years, will I have accomplished anything beyond creating an educated slum? Truly, I don’t know. But this today, this is real. This can make a difference.

As Grace’s son lectures, confidently, poised, clearly in his element, I wonder what Grace thinks when she looks at her eldest child. Does she see the face of her husband, just one more victim to the violence and countless killings during Uganda’s civil war? Does she see the future of all her children in her son’s success? Does she see the potential for a better future for her people, the Acholi? I look to him and see the best of what Uganda has to offer - amazing and extraordinary people.

After he finishes his presentation, I introduce myself and we sit down to discuss some of the pragmatics of this agricultural initiative. In order for this project to be successful we greatly need a person trained in agriculture. I don’t want him to feel that I simply expect him to donate his time and talents, so I offer that we could hire him as a short-term consultant to get the project underway. He shakes his head, smiling, as if he’s talking to a small child. “I hope you’re not going to talk about money now.” He pauses and resumes, “I think in the Western world that is how it is. But here, it makes you happy just to help your neighbors.”

Today I just needed a breather. A little time away from the constant needs of the Quarter - needs that I can’t possibly meet. A little time for myself without people jockeying for my time and yanking me in every direction. As they say in the Quarter, “feel free,” yet when I’m in there, I’m never free. There are too many problems I hear daily and I’m helpless to solve every woe. I’m anything but free as good-intentioned people make unreasonable demands on my time. Free choice does not exist in the Quarter.

So today I slept in and gave myself the day off - time to catch up on emails and go to the local book store to find a good read to distract me. By 10:30, as I typed away at an internet cafe, that all changed. After ignoring repeated phone calls, I finally picked up to hear Ayoo Jennifer’s distressed voice. “I’m in the clinic. I’m hurt. I sat on glass. Come quickly.”

I jumped on the first boda boda and sped off to the Quarter. I found Ayoo in the clinic laying awkwardly on a bare and stained vinyl mattress, wrapped from the waist in an equally stained and dingy fabric. Her eyes red from the tears that still flowed.

She had sat on a large piece of glass and had a cut that stretched across her left thigh and butt about 4 inches long and seem to be quite deep. The first nurse to come to her aid had been too frightened by the depth of the laceration splintered with pieces of glass to do anything. So they had waited for a second nurse to clean the wound and stitch it up.

Ayoo lay there so weak that she could barely speak or prop herself up. She had lost a lot of blood and had had nothing to eat or drink since the night before. I gave her one of my ever-present energy bars and gave someone money to buy some juice. That’s about the extent of my medical know-how!

After Ayoo regained her strength, a trio of us propped her up and plodded her through the narrow passageways to her home, where she immediately sunk into the couch. Her son, Bogoza, 13, sat silently watching, his eyes staring at his mother, unwilling to let her out of his focus. Tears slowly streaked his cheeks. His father already dead for many years, he knew all too well how quickly life could be snuffed out of a parent. And he was clearly afraid. Seeing his distress, Ayoo called him to her to comfort him. He tried to brave away the tears, but failed.

Later that day, Ayoo would tell me how she watched the people gather around her after she’d been carried to the clinic. She imagined that’s what her death bed would look like and she was so afraid that she would die before her children grew old enough to take care of themselves. “I’m both the mother and father,” she sadly proclaimed. I’m sure that must be a constant fear of parents everywhere, that they will die when their children are young. But there’s something more intense about that fear here in the Quarter. Death is a constant. A collapse in the stone quarry, a child struck with malaria, a mother succumbs to AIDS. In an instant, a 13 year old child becomes the head of household left to care for 2 younger siblings. That’s just life in the Quarter.