Rhythm

Dancing.

 

Singing.

 

Breathing.

 

Living, moving, being.

 

Don’t’ tell me you don’t have it, because we’ve all got it. Rhythm. Whether you’re a fierce dancer or were born without the ability to clap in time to a marching band song, we all live our lives to a rhythm. Those of use who are type A’s may live lives orchestrated like a complex Beethoven symphony; and those of us who are self-proclaimed free-spirits may live lives to the movements of something akin to a river dance…. underneath it all though is a rhythm, a beat.

 

Eating.

 

Sleeping.

 

Laughing.

 

Living, moving, being.

 

Rhythm happens within a person, within a family, within a culture. It varies, it moves, it morphs. It moves our souls and connects us to each other. Rhythm is about feeling and relationship. 

 

I recently broke out of my usual life cadence by moving to Uganda. Talk about having a different groove to life. 

 

My living situation now is a weird mixture that I’m still trying to reconcile in my head. I live in a house with 2 other girls that is on a compound with 3 other houses. We have electricity, running water, even kitchen appliances. We have a car we share and use to drive to work, church, the grocery story (yes, they have grocery stores here)…where we can buy food “similar” to American food (although if you choose to buy it, a brand name box of cereal can cost $7 or more and a cake mix of box mix for brownies or cookies can cost $11 or more!!!). So, in that sense, my life still feels “modern” and even “American,” in a scaled down sense (although the pack of howling dogs usually start their ruckus at around 10pm and the cow that lives behind my house wakes me up in the morning).

 

The strange part is that within a mile of my home here there are kids and families that live in shacks. The average day’s wage is around $2/day, sometimes less. At kids club one Saturday, one of the kids said she wanted to thank God because her family got to eat chicken and rice for Independence Day. We went with one of the program’s mentors to visit one of the students. Dora and sister live in one of Kampala’s slums. I always joke that I worked in the ghetto in San Jose, but I guess I’ve never been to a slum before. It’s literally a city of shacks, shanties, and a maze of muddy dirt paths with whole families of 6-8 people living in one room “houses.”

 

The family we visited was so glad to have us. In America, it’s an honor to be invited to someone’s house. In African culture it’s an honor to have someone come and visit (even unannounced). For them to have “mzungu’s” (white people) come visit their home is an even bigger honor. The father of the family is a baker so they served us juice and muffins. It’s so hard to sit there and have them serve you when you know they need it so much more than you.

 

So, it’s hard to know how to make these mental adjustments in my head. I don’t think anyone expects me to go and move into the slums and of course I wouldn’t really want to… It’s just hard to know that my neighbors and some of the friends I have made here do. What do you do with that?

 

Playing.

 

Loving.

 

Mourning.

 

Living, moving, being.

 

Since I’ve been here, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting about how I’ve been living my life for the last 3 years. Not so much berating myself for all the things I have, or the money I earned in comparison to those here, but specifically the HOW of my life. I’m an independent person. I go places when I want to. I eat when I want to. I choose who and how much time I want to spend with people. I organize my day and plan out time for events and people, even God.

 

There is an Swahili proverb that says, “Haraka, Haraka, Haina Baraka,” which means “Hurry, hurry has no blessing.” When you greet someone you spend time asking them “how are you?” and “how is your family?” several times and in several ways. People walk most everywhere, leisurely.  So many times since I’ve been here I’ve become suddenly enveloped in spontaneous times of worship and prayer.

 

So my question to myself is…what is my rhythm? Do I orchestrate the music to my life and simply invite God to play a first chair instrument, or do I sit down and allow Him to conduct every chord in my life?

 

“For in Him we LIVE and MOVE and have our BEING.” Acts 17:28