Days 17-23:‏ Cultural differences

4.10.09: DAY TWENTY THREE
I am not going back in again tonight. Phew. Time on my hands a thing of the past. Still, I hope it’s the right call. I’m invited back to watch Watoto Church Drama Team’s play at the National Theatre (not quite as great as it sounds), and to the after show party. Firstly, ‘watoto’ is Swahili for ‘children’; what a great name for a church. Secondly, this is the thing I mentioned cryptically last week – I might get to write their next play! After the show last Saturday got randomly chatting (some of my guys knew some of them)… and there you go. Amazing. Random opening, perfect opportunity, and I’ve got a great solution to do this play idea I’ve had since last year; seems a bit God-breathed to me. So I’m hopeful.

Makes this seem a little prophetic…

28.9.09: DAY SEVENTEEN
Chatting to David tonight about careers etc. He was really confident about building a whole computer business. And he doesn’t even have any way to get to Uni. Realised I can be confident about building a successful career in writing, community theatre and pastor/teaching – in spite of hearing since forever that none of those things are ‘real jobs’ which will ever be enough to live on. I think I have so far managed pretty well to keep pursuing these things, in spite of such received ‘wisdom’. But I don’t feel particularly confident that I might be successful in these things; you know, like, better than other people also trying to do it. But I realise, these things are what God’s made me good at, so He’s going to give me good paid work in them too… if I stay confident – making confident choices, relating confidently with contacts, and working hard. I can do it! I can be a professional writer. I can pastor a great church. I can direct life transforming projects for all sorts of lost people. All I’ve got to do is GO FOR IT with Him. Praise God! Thank you Jesus!

(I also had a really fresh praise time this morning with some old Delirious songs. Drawn back to simply loving Jesus. Please, more of that. “We want to be known as people who are completely in love with you!”)

29.9.09: DAY EIGHTEEN
Ended up chatting with Immaculate for maybe a couple of hours after dinner. Amazing. She is an amazing follower of Jesus. Amazing stories, intimacy, knowledge of God. Jesus really blessed me by inspiring her to share wisdom & encouragement with me at length like that. Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus!

1.10.09: DAY TWENTY
I was thinking at breakfast this morning, ‘why are people here so free, positive and focused on following Jesus, when people in the UK aren’t?’ ‘Why are we so held up by our difficult experiences, when Africans who’ve experienced much worse are not?’ And this morning, the link popped into my head: it is our mental response to suffering, not the suffering itself, which gives us hang ups. And of course in the UK, we are ignorant of Satan’s tactics, even seeing hang ups as our right, and not wanting to let them go. So we are taken out of the game. The other thing is the temptation of the ‘nice little life’; for Africans that is rarely an option, so it remains clear that following Jesus is their only hope. But for us, it is a real and increasing temptation (I’ve heard from older folks).

1.10.09: DAY TWENTY Thoughts from the Taxi home. Late.
Today just felt like a case study for the doctrine of work. Work was created good, exciting, fulfilling; we rebelled against God and the consequence was that work became hard, mundane, frustrating. I went in today for three appointments:

1) Meet Mary to plan the children’s drama group at church. Rearranged from Tuesday, when on my way to see her she came the other way, going to town. Today I arrived at the school, after texting ahead, and she was out.

2) Secondary school drama club. Tuesday’s session spent trying to teach image work to a group with five year 7/8 girls. (Is there anything they won’t giggle at?) Today, tried to play ‘blood potato’ but they wouldn’t close their eyes. Tried to play ‘knots’ but they kept letting go their hands. Tried to read through a script one had written, but never got more than a few lines in a row as there were only two hand-scrawled copies and they were wandering around the room the whole time, whatever I said. (Can they not understand what I say half the time? Why don’t they say so? Are they just unable to treat an open space as anything except a playground?) Had another sound chat with the older boys walking home after.

3) Rehearse church youth drama team for performance at the crusade. Postponed from Tuesday and Wednesday nights when people didn’t come. Put it off until the end of the evening as people needed to sing in crusade outside. Half different people from the group that staged it on Sunday. Our preacher & interpreter roaring through the PA outside. Came unsure of what I’d do, unable to plan. Got totally into it. Characters, motivations, staging, editing; I was leaping about the room like a crazy person, and accumulated a little audience of local children as well as young people from the church. Real pumping stuff. But I thank God for patience. I can’t assume people are stupid, and I communicated extremely clearly, but somehow I found myself saying AGAIN; ‘No, when he says that you come on stage, you stand there, you say this then just mime, don’t say any more until…’ These guys are in their early twenties! It was painful.

The honeymoon was over after the first rehearsals. I can’t change African culture, but it feels like that means they won’t ever get anywhere; my job is to train them, they seem untrainable. But I also remember this is how it went in Cape Town last year. I kept accommodating interruptions, kind of enjoying kicking back instead of work, and so we didn’t get the play ready to perform like we’d planned to. But in the last week or so things did come together and we got a lot done – enough to be a real achievement. Maybe I played it right last time, after all. Go with the flow. It will come together somehow.

4.10.09: DAY TWENTY THREE
I picked Steph up from the airport on Wednesday and it’s been great hanging out. Very encouraging, very wise. As I dragged her into work on Friday to photograph me preaching she took us into Steers and bought us ice cream. ‘But Africans don’t do this’, I started… It was really good. Caramel dip cup. And yesterday we went walking in Mabira forest, which I remember from last time as the place all the hijacks happen. Steph wasn’t impressed when I mentioned this as the taxi drove away. But actually it was fun, and the worst of it was 4 large ants trying to eat my leg. I feel that doing a bit of tourism is right, even while being sobered to hear today that most Africans live on $0.5 a day. I’m now able to translate that into real terms: ¼ of what I spend everyday getting what I’ve been calling ‘mega cheap’ taxis to & from work. I noticed several people from here didn’t come to church this morning ‘because the taxis are expensive’. In the margins of my ‘just enough’ is many people’s whole life.

I still think spending money on my fun is okay, because living in the UK, I can’t avoid hurting some people whatever I do. What the poor need is not for us to be a bit more ‘ethical’ - try and not affect them as much, pretend our lives aren’t woven together – but for us to give our lives to embracing them.

Have a look at these:
http://www.watoto.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/13/recession-aid-poverty-development
Loads of love,
Tim