“Work” in Africa. Not always the easiest thing. Often filled with challenges, which individually are small and irrelevant, but added together, frustration easily sets in. On this day, all the small things hit together within a matter of 2 hours!
Office “work”. We, Scripture Union, don’t have an office in Gulu. We have a building where another organization allows us to store a few boxes of literature and we can come and meet there. There is no desk, no internet, no computer, no printer, no copier, no office supply room. Today’s task: receive a document from my “boss” (located in a town 2 hours from me), print and make copies. Sounds easy enough, right? Here’s the process:
Printing. Go to the internet café and download the document. Save document to USB drive. Insert USB drive into internet café computer and pray it doesn’t transfer a virus. Café techie prints document. Pay for internet usage and prints. Forgot to use letterhead paper, so reprint. Why we can’t put the letterhead into the Word document of the actual letter I haven’t figure out yet!!??
Phone usage. While at the internet café, a fellow customer sees the “Scripture Union” logo and inquires to me about Bibles. I explain that SU doesn’t have the resources to provide Bible’s but there’s the Bible Society in Kampala. I can get him a contact from my colleague, Susan. I know Susan has her Warid SIM card in her phone today; but I currently have my MTN SIM card in my phone. So I swap out the SIM cards, and using my Warid Pakalast (the ability to talk “until you have nothing more to say”, all free for 24hrs at the cost of 65 cents!!!) I call Susan to get my new Reverend friend a good contact. Yay for the Rev. BUT, in the is process, somehow I misplace my MTN SIM card, something I’m normally very cautious about the placement of the tiny piece of cardboard which preciously holds all my Ugandan contacts! After searching in the normal places in my backpack, searching around where I was sitting and standing, it can’t be found. :-( Not good.
Make copies. Hoping the SIM card will show up later in my backpack, I move on. Take print-outs to photocopying business (thankfully only a few doors down the street). Ask techie to make desired copies. No self-serve Kinko stations. Attempt to use provided large paper cutter only to have it not work ends up “spoiling” your copies. Finish up. Pay. Now back to the office to assemble documents.
This process of the internet café, printing and making copies, somehow took 1.5 hours!
Food. At this point, I’m pretty frustrated already. I decide to head back to our shared office and try to relax and re-group myself! And I want to grab some food on the way. I swing by a café. I’m craving some muesli (granola) with yogurt. Of course, the muesli “is not there.” The person who was to bring it from Kampala had a different “program.”
So I decide to go to the office and then go to the Supermarket; don’t’ get too excited, it’s only the equivalent of a large 7-11.
Sharing an Office. Only to arrive at the office and find it locked. I don’t own a key. It’s not our office, remember. The person is not around. I move on to the Supermarket three doors down, and buy a yogurt. I take it to the office and sit on the ground in front of the doors.
Garbage. I eat my yogurt quickly as it’s after 2pm by now. In following with Ugandan procedure, I take my empty yogurt cup (now garbage) and throw it in the drainage ditch with the rest of the garbage. It’s pointless to carry it around town searching for a garbage can. They simply do not exist.
RESTORATION!!! Now I’m pretty much to the max of my cultural flexibility! I want to just cry as I’m sitting on the ground in front of my locked office, but instead I call a friend. A friend who I can always count on for amazing wisdom and reminders of the Truth. He comes through and really lifts me up…as I cry on the phone explaining my day of all these silly petty little things…to someone who has real issues (like not being able to find work!!) Yet he simply says he’s sorry for my day and reminds me of God’s promises to carry us through all life’s circumstances!
And just like that…with a Pakalast phone call, I’m able to turn my day around and keeping going.
The moral of this story?? Ummmm… work in Uganda is often challenging. Even the small things which back in the western world are so simple can add up and just become frustrating. Yet, at the end of the day, or the middle of the day, whenever you can wrap your mind around the Truth and faithfulness of our Father, you remember Jesus is walking beside you or perhaps carrying you along.
Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. Heb 13:5
Huge thanks to my dear friend Bernard who allowed God to speak through him to encourage me! A great blessing in my life!!! As I know he would so humbly respond to this comment: Glory to God!!!!! :-)
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