Saturday Afternoon at Bethel House

Two days of rain finally came to an end this afternoon. The sun is shining. The solar lamps stand sentinel-like and recharge. The dishes dry in the sun. 

Across the street at the 7^th Day Adventist Church, a men’s quartet practices songs from my childhood—songs that my father, Lyle Chase, and their tenor and baritone partners offered during Sunday evening worship. Sometimes Dad and Mom sang in SATB quartets as Sunday evening “special music.” Funny how this place, Beni, calls up memories of the small manufacturing town and railroad stop where I grew up, Corry, PA.

But this day. From my perch at my desk, I look directly at the wall surrounding our compound. Just above stands the top of Renaly’s Alimention, “La Devouverte” (Renaly’s Grocery Story: The Discovery). Renaly’s is a sort of Beni strip mall. It's a long, low building with several “storefronts.” A bar, a shop that sells food items and sundries, a coiffure, and a pharmacie operate on the premises. Renaly’s Alimentation livens our evenings with a repetitive playlist at volumes that meriting a call to local authorities for “disrupting the peace” in the US.

The gospel quartet has disbursed. The street now plays its music. Motos rumble past as the bass and percussion. A radio at the alimentation sings a tenor line. Women call out greetings and a group of children plays behind us. A baby cries a sad melody against the harmonies. A songbird chips an occasional ornamentation, a grace note frequently lost in the din. Sometimes the delicate note calls out of a slice of quiet before the downbeat.

I have to think in these terms and find beauty in the din. Otherwise the sounds crash against each other and scream insults. I want quiet. I want only the songbird’s singular and gentle grace notes. I want the motos and the radio and the honking to cease. 

I want. I want. I want.

 

If I were in the US right now I would be railing against the onslaught of holiday advertisements, cheap music, and the siren call to buy more than I can afford or anyone needs.

So, I have a choice. Wish. Want. Stew in “If only” and “Why don’t they…?” Or accept what is and change what I can. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Oh….and enjoy the sun!

In Entebbe

Restful day here in Bugongo district of Entebbe at the Sunset Motel Entebbe. There are views out both sides of the motel to Lake Victoria, and an accompanying gentle breeze. It was a gift to take a shower and sleep on a bed, prone, after 12+ hours on airplanes yesterday.

This morning after breakfast and a delightful conversation with Monique, a young Dutch woman heading to Bunia, I spent some time writing, thinking, going for a walk, and enjoying the gifts of this region:

Keeping watch on the water

Surprise

Birds and vegetation. Perhaps because they are unfamiliar, the bird species and their songs capture my imagination. I recognize pelicans and kingfishers (or their cousins). But there are other small songbirds that dart among the flowers and larger birds that swoop and call from rooftops and light poles. One bird, with the voice of a wooden-flute, sang a Gloria of repeating double measures in 2/4 time from somewhere down the road this morning. A tree shaded the table where I wrote. It's physique, spidery, yet thick, belies the beauty and fragrance of the blossoms. Only three or four clusters decorate its mass.

Yum

Tea. Is there anything to compare to spiced African tea? It's the color of almonds, made with hot milk and sweet spices. What a delight to sip my way through an entire thermos.

Gracious kindness of strangers. During my walk, a moto-driver asked if I wanted a ride. I thanked him and explained that I was out for a walk. When I asked him for the best way to get down to the water, he offered to drive me over a shortcut to the road. I explained that I didn't have any money on me, as I was just out for a walk. "No problem, Madame. Get on. I will show you." It was a short drive; but I wouldn't have recognized the shortcut on my own.

Contrasts. My American memory and perspective delights in what are, to me, surprising contrasts. For example, a large LG, flat screen television entertains in the dining area of the motel, and there is free internet here and at other guest houses and motels in the area. At the same time, laundry is done by hand and hung over the wall, and trash is collected and burned in open fires in each compound. Then there are the day and night. Literally. The sun shines bright and high during the day. Darkness lands suddenly and completely by 6pm, unabashed, requiring no defense against city lights.

Last night, landing first in Kigali, then in Entebbe, was an example of the contrast between light and dark here in this place. As we approached each airport, only scattered dots of light indicated the city below. Parallel orange lights, lonely in black night, appeared suddenly--the only visible marker of each airport. At Kigali, a car with lights blinking guided our jumbo jet to the terminal. Three portable passenger-stair trucks stood, sentinel-like, their headlights on, and illuminated our final approach to the terminal at Entebbe.

New ways of looking and seeing. Before my first trip to Congo in October, 2009, Paul Robinson gave  good advice that I continue to follow: Observe and jot down those observations. Refrain from judgment and analysis. Ask questions.

Ready to go?

It would be easy (especially for the judgment-inclined person that I am) to look at the paint peeling from what appears to be a sleek new hotel and think... Or jump to judgment about three heifers tied in an abandoned lot. Or allow contrasts to become questions. But my Congolese sisters and brothers have taught me to see with other eyes and refrain from judging actions and decisions in another culture from my American lens. (Tim Harford, in his recently-posted TED Talk, Trial and error and the God complex, seems to agree.) So, I take delight in the hot-rod towing a camper and cows amidst refuse overlooking Lake Victoria.

The ease of being present in the present. One of the gifts of Congo, and my brief passages through Uganda, is that it's easier for me to be present in the present. Perhaps it's the contrasts, the new ways of looking and seeing, being a stranger and a sojourner, or the sensual joys of sight, sound, taste, and smell; but it's easier to be present in the present here, in this place. It's easier to sit and to listen--first to the birds, the music, the lilting voices--and then to God.