Richard is our guard and has become more like a brother to us. He takes great care of us! He invited Naomi and I to visit his village, Bar Alimo, which is about an hour and a half motorcycle ride outside of Gulu. He knows how to drive so he rented someone's bike for the day. Naomi rode with him, and I called my favorite boda, Sunday, to come and take me. I trust Sunday's driving immensely because he is the boda driver that I was riding with when we ran into the cow. (I know – that sounds funny. It was not his fault that we hit the cow, but rather his skilled driving that kept the accident from being worse than it could have. Not trying to downplay God's protection in that instance at all, but seeing how a boda driver handles something like that makes you trust them to do it again in any similar situation). So, Richard wanted to head out at 7:00 sharp and told Sunday to be here at not a minute past 7. I figured that still meant Sunday would show up around 8, and Naomi and I were still getting ready a few minutes after 7 when Richard called saying he was there and that Sunday was also there. We rushed around and finally were ready, only to step outside the gate and find that Richard had left to buy socks. We waited a few minutes for him and finally left around 7:30. We stopped briefly for fuel, and then we were off, halfway between muzungu time and African time!
I absolutely love taking bodas out to the village...any village...I think I might start taking boda rides out to the bush even if I've not been invited to anyone's village. If you go in the morning, the air is cool. The sun is not yet feeling harsh but still kind of friendly. The scenery is incredible, and you just feel free. I wish I knew something about African birds because I saw several today that piqued my curiosity all over again. At home I'm used to knowing what most birds I see are, but here I see at least one every day that is so unique and beautiful. The only negative thing about riding bodas out of town is the layer of orange dust that collects on every inch of you during the journey.
We bumped along for about an hour, and then took a sharp turn onto a smaller road. A few minutes later we turned onto a smaller road, and then onto a path through the bush. Eventually we came out onto another big road, passed a couple small trading centers, and then ended up on an even smaller path through the bush. Thorns and bushes were wacking us on either side and we even had to duck for a couple of tree limbs. We finally pulled into a large clearing with a few thatch-roof huts scattered around at about 9 AM. This was Richard's family's place.
We were immediately greeted and welcomed by Richard's aunts, Korina and Santa, his brothers Walter and Denis, as well as Walter's wives Dorine and Alice, numerous children, and even more numerous pigs, dogs, chickens, and goats. They ushered us to a circle of chairs next to one of the huts, where we deposited our bags and rested for a few minutes. I paid Sunday for driving and he left. Richard continued introducing us to members of his family, and then his oldest brother, Walter, announced that he was going to kill a goat for us. This is the first time I've experienced this in a village – goats are very expensive, and usually people will just kill a chicken for you (which is still a sacrifice and a big way to honor your guests). Here are Walter and Denis, introducing us to our lunch:
Walter and Denis took the goat over behind a tree (a very small tree) and proceeded to slit it's throat and skin it.
Ground-nuts (what we know as peanuts) are basically a staple food here, so of course they have a fancy machine to remove the shells. :) Here's Naomi practicing:
Richard got us our first round of Mountain Dews from inside the hut, and took us past the clearing into a small wooded area where he has set up some bee hives (which are made out of huge water pots). No bees have set up their homes yet but he is hoping they will when wet season comes next month. Ugandan bee hive:
Then we got a tour of Dorine's gardens – we saw sesame, sorghum, millet, cassava, and bananas. Gardens here are not like gardens at home. They seem to blend in with the bush and if you don't know your plants you can totally miss that you even just walked through someone's garden. We walked for about an hour and by now the sun had gotten down to business and was no longer being friendly, so we went back to find that breakfast was ready – goat liver and 2nd Mountain Dews! We were hungry from walking and the goat liver was really good. Part of Dorine's garden - this is a cassava plant:
After breakfast we met some more family members. Richard and his siblings are 9 total, and there were only a few of them who couldn't make it to that part of the village for our visit. When you visit someone's home here it's common to give a few formal “words,” telling them thank you for welcoming you and how happy you are to be there. The family gathered around and we shared some words, and then Walter said he would save his words for us until it was time for us to leave. His second wife, Alice, brought out her new baby which we got to hold and take pictures with. Her name is Aol Betty and she is three weeks old. This was Richard's first time meeting his newest niece.
Eventually it was lunch time. Dorine brought a basin, soap, and a pitcher of water and poured water over our hands for us as we washed up. They served us cassava (gwana), millet bread (kal), sorghum bread (kabir), and potatoes (layata muno) along with sesame seeds cooked in a certain way (lakorokoro) and greens (boo) cooked three different ways, and of course goat. Richard's family all joined us to eat lunch, which is unusual – often they leave the guests to eat by themselves so that they can “feel comfortable.”
We ate until we couldn't eat any more, and then the shade was disappearing so we moved our chairs inside Dorine's hut to continue visiting, passing around the baby, and... drinking a third round of Mountain Dews!
Only Walter's first wife Dorine and Richard's oldest sister, Nighty are saved, but his other sister Lily was wearing a necklace with all the colors of the wordless book. Naomi complimented her on her necklace and asked if she could explain what the colors mean as far as our faith goes. Lily agreed so Naomi shared. Walter, Denis, Lily, Alice, Nighty, and some of the kids listened intently. Nighty then shared with us how she came to Christ. She used to brew alcohol and didn't want to accept Christ because she knew she would have to leave brewing and she didn't see any other way to feed and support her family. Then her husband became sick and through some other hardships she eventually became desperate and decided to accept Christ. Almost immediately after leaving her brewery, He gave her new ideas of ways to make money, which she began doing. She has been supporting her family in those ways ever since. Nighty sharing her testimony:
When asked what they thought about what Naomi and Nighty had shared, Walter said he knew that he would follow Jesus someday but that the time hadn't come yet. Eventually we learned that for him, Denis, and Alice, their main reason for not following Jesus yet was because they still wanted to do funeral rites for a relative who had passed away sometime back. (Traditional funerals here include many cultural things including having a witchdoctor present who communicates with the deceased person. At times the “deceased person” may even demand that one of their children should be sent to be with them.) When a person becomes a Christian there are a lot of things like that in Acholi culture that must be given up (every culture has both redeemable and non-redeemable aspects). When they said they “couldn't follow Jesus yet because they needed to first have a funeral,” I knew I had heard that before...and realized I had to read Matthew 8:18-22 (after Naomi helped me find it), which talks about the cost of following Jesus.
18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me now, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
I emphasized that following Jesus is not easy, and that there are things in our culture (whether Acholi or American) that have to be given up, because God calls His followers to be different from the world around us.
I am glad I didn't think too much before reading the passage because I would have chickened out. There's a lot more that Walter will have to give up if he accepts Christ, like having two wives...both of whom were in the hut with us while we were sharing. I was sure that God brought that passage to my mind and that He wanted it shared, but afterward I felt like it was a really hard word and that maybe it had been inappropriate. Richard later assured me that it was the right thing to share though, and that people here need a “hard Gospel,” that it somehow makes them soft. He can already see a difference in Walter from the last time he saw him in December, and he thinks that he truly is close to accepting Christ. So, please pray for Walter and for the rest of Richard's family.
The conversation moved on to other things, and Walter shared the story of their family and how they lost both their mother and father. He and Richard have both been abducted by the LRA multiple times. The story of how God protected Richard while he was with the rebels is incredible. If you want to read more you can check out Naomi's blog about it here: http://naomiformissions.blogspot.com/2011/01/richards-story.html
Eventually it was time for us to go. The family presented us with a bag of peas (lapena), some ground-nuts, (pul) and of course a big piece of goat meat (rangu dyel) as parting gifts. Then we took some group photos.
Richard's brother in law is a boda driver, and Denis was also wanting to return to his school in Gulu Town, so, we all three piled on a bike to head home.. On the way back we went over this bridge! (Naomi and I had gotten off and walked across on the way in).
After a long, fun day it was finally time to head home...
