Live Like Lauren

Mission trips are typically well organized for the safety and convenience of those coming from more modern societies. Many short-term missionaries might not want to come if they knew they had to use a pit latrine or eat rice and beans for dinner every night. Car rental, flush toilets, and restaurants are the way of most short-term missionaries. To truly experience Ugandan culture, such luxuries must be foregone.

My objective for this last week in Uganda (sniffle, sniffle) is to live like Lauren. Uganda lacks a middle class, but living like Lauren is still a higher standard than most Ugandans. We do have indoor plumbing (when there is water although it is never hot) and electricity (sometimes) and mosquito nets. We have no refrigerator and no oven/stove but we do have a single gas burner and a charcoal pot for grilling (if we want to kill our own chicken).

I’ll spend the week doing all the things Lauren normally does in service to Mercy Uganda and I’ll do them in the same way she normally does them. One thing we’ve got to do is exchange currency sent by child sponsors, identify sponsored child needs, shop for those needs, and bring the items back to the children. Sounds easy, right? Remember…there are no Meijer or Wal-mart stores so each item we need will have to be purchased at a different roadside stand or on market day and…there’s always the challenge of public transport.

We eat two or three meals each day, which means we need to shop for food in the market (not a grocery store). Food here doesn’t have preservatives and with no fridge we are somewhat limited in the options. The food is all fresh, which is yummy, but keeping a live chicken (or a dead one for that matter) until dinner time is no easy task. Keeping any food is tough because of ants and fruit flies…and the occasional mouse. None the less, we shopped yesterday for breakfast today and will shop today for lunch and/or dinner today as well as breakfast tomorrow. Remember…public transport and that anywhere I go with Lauren means that our prices are higher because I’m mzungo.

Shopping and eating are just the beginning of what needs to be done this week, but I will fully enjoy every moment of experiencing something close to real life while I’m here.