Our team tends to refer to our lifes back in America as "real life", where as being in the Pearl of Africa isn't. (ie: In real life I usually have lots of energy, but here in Africa-land I'm always exhausted.) It's hard to explain, but sometimes I don't feel like I'm actually breathing, standing, and living in the continent of Africa. It seems as if I'm in some foreign land, but I'm unable to actually wrap my mind around the fact that I'm on the other side of the planet. I don't know how the characters Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy felt when adventuring through the land of Narnia, but I probably feel somewhat similar. (:
Amidst this foreign place we call Uganda, there is an abundance of beauty as well as tragedy. Behind the genuine and lovely smiling faces there is almost always a heartbreaking story. Stories about villages running from the LRA and spending days sleeping in the streets. Stories about widows trying to find a way to care for their six children, some of which have AIDS and swollen bellies due to malnutrition. Stories about young boys and girls that don't get an education past third grade because their parents can't afford to pay the needed school fees. Stories about young men spending their days and nights lying in hospital beds, paralyzed because of being tortured by the LRA rebels.
And that's when it hits me. In America, I don't have to think about all the pain going on around the world. I can easily hide behind my own comfort and ignorance. But here in Africa, I see it every single day. All these stories and beautiful people are real. It's no longer an unknown face on another commercial. These are real people living real lives.
