It's disconcerting how comfortable I can get in a shell. Moving from home to the volunteer house to the office and back, riding through the town on my bike, stopping to talk to friends, conduct some small business, and being halted by particularly cute or persistent kids turns into an easy way to spend the days out here. I can rush from my fortresses of walls and guards through the busy streets protected by the exoticness of my appearances. These defenses can keep out real interaction at times. I notice all this, even as I speed down the road in my newly tuned-up bike with actual working gears so that every rut in the road becomes and exciting obstacle that must be overcome and dodging people, bikes, cares, bodas, and any other possible impediment rises a challenge that makes the morning ride to work an exhilarating affair. Through it all though, as I try to wave at the children who immerge from huts, bushes, houses, and crowds to wave at me and cry, "Muno, bye!" I notice the distance rising.
The distance can be defeated. It takes some effort, and even when I'm traveling around with a good friend and he is opening his life to me and I'm trying not to stare too wide-eyed or ask too many questions but to just be "friend" and not "mzungu," I still wonder how much that distance persists. But still I try.
This weekend offered some grand opportunities. First was a wicked boda ride through mud sloshing side streets and villages buried in the bush around town, off to the new location of my friend Simon's church, the Miracle Center of Gulu. The church had just moved from a location in town to a spot of land on the other side of what was sometimes a river (and it was such that day, causing some difficulty for parishioners coming from town.) The whole area was a tent erected on poles, a number of huts, and a small baking area in the back. As we got there, people were just moving in the generator and a few keyboards, preparing for the morning service. I tried so hard to not be awkward as I stood there with a number of people drastically aware that I was the only white person there early enough to witness the set-up. In truly overtly Christian and overtly conspicuous manner, I took advantage of opportunities for personal prayer to draw inside myself amid the growing crowd. But soon I could even in my shy self talk to some other people when Simon wasn't there, and before too long the service started, filled with amazing amounts of dancing and singing.
My old, good, possibly best friend Torben and I used to listen to music in junior high and I noticed an odd difference between us. Whenever we didn't know the words to a song, Torben would always try to make something up, hopefully something that made some small amount of sense—which wasn't too hard as many of the lyricists we listened too seemed to pride themselves on obscurity. His lyrics were even sometimes better than the original and I think somewhere in the recesses of memory I may sing them today in deference to the originals. As for myself, I genuinely tried to get at the words by just making noises approximating what I heard. To my ears it sounded close enough to the mumbling, screening, or whining coming out of the speakers and made about as much sense, even if it didn't have Torben's inspired genius of improvisation. Well, that little practice and ability served me well on Sunday. As the Acholi praise songs started blasting our of the speakers and the congregation, I could grasp only the basic sounds of the choruses and tried my best to accompany them, hoping at some similarity. I closely watched the gathered performers at the front of the tent, scanning them for every action and expression, each one giving a small understanding to the intents of the words I never quite heard and certainly failed to understand and repeat properly. I just hoped the sentiment would be there, that when I saw joy in front of me portrayed by the mixing numbers of singers and dancers, that I could bring forth some equal joy in my singing, or at least my intonations.
And then there was dancing. I began in with the same approach I normally throw at such movements during worship. There are those whose hands are held high above their heads, swaying to and fro, and those who favor, well, more subtle movements. Arguments can be made over shyness or even lack of spirituality but for whatever reasons, that's how it tends to go. In this arena I was conspicuous enough standing in front of the still filling crowd, and as the movements of the children and everyone else filled the tent, well, there's this point where the small movements I make to not stand out too much in stillness graduate to slight awkward mimicking of the motions around me, which then itself gives way to dancing. Then I remember that it's simple, that it's movement accompanied by music and meaning and that praise, if anything, is also embodied in this. All the actions that seem so standard to the dancing, jumping congregation try to coarse through me as well, and for the most part, from my limited perspective of myself, I seemed to be doing well enough. Enjoyed it at least.
Once the music ceased, a series of speakers led to a pastor who introduced a guest speaker. This week also accompanied a large missions group from
That night held more speeches. I had to leave the service early, after only three or four hours, to run home, shower, and prepare for the first anniversary of Invisible Children in Gulu. We were holding a grand soiree at one of the nicer hotels in town where we had invited those who had helped us in all that we had accomplished. After a series of speeches where people announced our accomplishments including around 400 kids on scholarship and plans including the Schools for Schools program that I'm working on (more on that later), and even some smaller ones where my friend Katie was promoted Gulu District Chairperson for the evening to allow the actual LC5 to enjoy the evening more, we launched into dinner and dancing.
With the day bookending well, music and dancing to speeches to speeches to music and dancing, I had somehow returned to the consciousness of myself, and sat making conversation comfortably in the tables with a few others while the dancing ensued. All this until a number of persistent women forced my polite hand and brought me to grass serving as a dance floor. Whether through wine or simple good luck, the dances remained on levels of complications that even I could handle. Again, the lyrics could hide some of the meanings behind the song if it weren't for all the other signs. Some of them, dancing in circles and moving with specific, yet cryptic movements were beyond my discerning, but others offered easier targets. I figure that at one point, were I was lined up with all the other men, facing the women and pumping fists to the ground with considerable vigor as one or two of them shook their ways towards us, enticed one to follow them almost back to their line before releasing him back to his fellows offered a fairly obvious, even to those without any real training, a courtship dance. In which case, I'm told I performed quite well as I was escorted over a few times myself—all the while attempting on some levels to believe that the compliment was due to my amazing dancing abilities or at least my charm and not the novelty of the situation. Either way, after each time the music died, we all gathered around and laughed, clapping hands ourselves and with each other, glad to be there and dancing together.
