Coping

Kampala. Uganda. Africa. The world. 

It doesn't really matter where you are, suffering is suffering. But here you face it on a daily basis. I think that is the difference. The people who live with such suffering have ways to accept and live with it.  Much in the way that Steve handles death more often as a doctor than most Americans - he has developed skills to cope, and indeed accepts death as a part of life in a way that Americans have forgotten. Here, in Africa, to say people are touched by death is an understatement.  The median age in Uganda is 15 years of age, with a life expectancy at birth of 53 years old. HIV and AIDS are still an epidemic, and poverty is rampant. 

Living here these many weeks, I am stuck by how many conversations have traumatic events casually thrown in. "My mother died of AIDS when I was 15...", "...my father beat me..." , "...I left school at 10 to care for my younger siblings...". It is not just the stories that are shocking- more so the fact that these stories are normal circumstances here.  I don't know how Ugandans cope with the realities of life here, but each day I hear something that strikes me across the face anew. 

I am unaccustomed to such pain. I am knocked to the ground by the individual stories of abandonment, rape and abuse, but I am more offended by the way these horrible things are common occurrences. I know that i am compassionate, probably to a fault, but I am also well aware of my sheltered life. The things I empathize with are things that have happened to others, that I have learned about in books, newspapers, movies. To rub up against them in such a personal manner is to rub myself raw. But I think I like it that way. 

I need to walk through Uganda with such a blistered exterior, because even so, it is just a glimmer of what these people have experienced. I don't think I need to put myself through the exercise of living in poverty or hardship to feel their pain. But I do think in order to live here for an extended time, you have to harden your heart to survive. And I think change comes when those of us who can afford to be affected can do that, and share the stories. 

I need to be affected. It is how I go through life, how I vibrate in this world. How I feel alive.  I am no pioneer- I am not changing my life to move here and dedicate my time to raising up the poor.  It matters though, what I am doing. Helping one boy. Changing his life so drastically, and ours too in turn. Contributing to the ongoing efforts of this home that has sheltered him for nearly a year. This safe haven, where children can begin to heal even before they are adopted or resettled. And sharing the stories by writing about it, so others can be affected in that 3rd person way we Westerners usually are. 

So how do I cope?  I suppose my answer is I don't. But I can afford it. I can afford my heart to be singed by the heartbreak. I will carry it with me forever, and I will relay it to my son one day. Maybe he will in turn do more than I ever will at helping his country, his people. Maybe he won't, and that would be fine too. I am not adopting him so that he will rescue Africa. I am adopting him to make him whole, and I think in turn he will do the same for me.