Days 53-58: The chicken at the end of the world‏

8.11.09: DAY FIFTY EIGHT. Taxi stage, Iganga.
I am sat on a chicken. My chicken. Just when I thought they couldn’t be any more good to me, Ezekiel and Florence send me on my way with a cockerel, a loaf of bread, and pay my taxi fare. I don’t understand how people can be so good. Culture doesn’t cover it. I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve it. They live in a concrete shell without power or running water. They just paid out a fortune to put on a massive Introduction for their daughter, with hundreds of guests. And another thing: amid the mayhem that would have certainly given me ulcers, Ezekiel remained cheerful and attentive to every guest. He was concerned with my transport arrangements, comfort and enjoyment… and he barely knows me! I kept treading lightly, not wanting to burden, but he was a picture of affability the whole weekend, even when his wallet disappeared. They even outdid me in expressing gratitude for my visiting them! I was cynical last time about Ezekiel stealing our schedule, but now I think he might have just been looking after us.

Still, I’m glad to be moving on. I got to a point last night, after the groom’s party arrived 4 hours late, trying to help with abrupt young men slamming pavilion poles around me, when I thought, ‘I’ve had as much culture as I can take.’ [I’ve been sat on this taxi for an hour, and we’re literally just pulling away] Yesterday reminds me how proud, judgemental and anti social I am. I once heard the phrase ‘an iceberg with social skills’. Interesting.

I asked a guy how he copes with waiting so long at functions like this. When I got him to stop guessing what I was saying, giving completely random answers, and repeated my question more clearly, he said, ‘We listen to the music. Maybe dance. We enjoy it.’ And a couple of minutes later they did dance. Some of the church choir jumped up and began gyrating to the house music, and a moment later my companion had begged a girl’s headscarf and was whisking hips with the best of them. Fantastic. It happened a couple of times over half an hour, then back to sitting around waiting; no sign that the DJ, vicar, schoolmistress, had it in them. It’s like the openness and sociability you sometimes see on taxis – one minutes there’s mud silence, the next everyone’s in on the joke. A culture waiting to break out. Life in all its richness hidden beneath city clothes. How much of that spirit is waiting in the children and young people I work with, and I haven’t seen it?

6.11.09: DAY FIFTY SIX. 11am, In a taxi.
10 minutes from Iganga now. Need to keep an eye out for the Busoga Uni sign where I’m meeting Ezekiel’s man. This guy I’ve never met and know nothing about. Then I go and preach at the CU, as I discovered last night in another ‘pardon’-filled phonecall. I’ve got my shoe-shoes on, suit out. I’m not ready and able. God help me.

3.25pm, Ezekiel’s veranda.
I guess he did. Encouraged that the students appreciated what I was saying (plenty of nodding and no more than a few walking off!), and that I got the dress code right. I’m loving this experience of being ‘on retreat’. No work pressure, no city craziness – I can hear some children in the distance, but as many birds and insects. Just a few cars. It’s overcast and cool. I’m looking out on countryside…

Now it’s raining. And Ladysmith Black Mambazo are singing in my head; ‘Rain, rain, beautiful rain.’ It’s wonderful when life, the world, is just clear like this. Simple. Feeling alive. Savouring. I’m sitting here thinking about what I want, what do I want to do, and sure I want adventures – in my work as much as my holidays – but what I really feel I want is… ‘to love and be loved’. Now here I am sitting on my own, thousands of miles from home, a hundred from anyone I know, and it’s partly the welcome warm heart of Africa, but mainly its Jesus: I’m feeling very loved indeed.

7.11.09: DAY FIFTY SEVEN. 8.50am, deep in the village.
I’m hiding back in my room. There’s only so long you can sit on cushionless wood frames between strangers when you slept 5 hours and nodded another couple wedged between dog collars in the front of a pickup cross country (with 2 more men sharing a sofa on the back!). It was pretty wild when we got here, around midnight. The ‘overnight’ consisted of a wild disco for all the local lads (girls afraid to come out after dark) – interspersed with preaching from every reverend in the district… and me. Oh yes, Ezekiel hadn’t mentioned that one either. It was 12.30. I was dead. But the Spirit led me to a bit of Matthew I was stirred by this morning and the translation gave me time to make it up as I went along. So Jesus carried me through again.

8.11.09: DAY FIFTY EIGHT. 7.55am. Taxi stage, Iganga.
2 days of extremes: fascination and boredom, overwhelming love and loneliness. I felt I was at the end of the world. Looking out into the Milky Way, I felt I could almost step into it. I wasn’t looking up. I was looking forward. The sky wasn’t dark – it was shimmering. Stars beyond stars like distant cities and towns, like a map of the world, like a tent for God. I’ve felt really lonely out here- as a special guest, pawing matoke alone while others watched hungry; hundreds of merrily chatting strangers, none with good enough English to hold a pleasant conversation; scores of children staring everywhere I went; repetitive music and rituals all in a language that I have once on this trip (followed with horror) referred to as ‘mumbo jumbo’.

I suspect last night was the outer limit of my journey from home. 8 weeks - 2/3 of the trip exactly. Pretty neat. The rest is bringing this baby in to land. Then I’ll discover what’s next. Thank you Jesus for never leaving me, for being my real companion so far from home. I came here looking for you and you are faithfully showing me more each day. This morning I feel convicted that I won’t ever know you just through study, but through life.
Tim