Confession:: I waited till nearly my 3rd decade of life to watch my first Super Bowl this year.
Apparently, inspired by either homesickness or feelings of nostalgia for anything American, I decided that living in Uganda meant I should watch Super Bowl XLV. Having spent most of my life saying my feelings for football almost border on hate, I will point out that I showed an extraordinary amount of dedication to watch this football game - getting up at 3am Ugandan time and even making an effort to learn the rules (and no, they still don't make sense…something about yard lines? Yard sticks?).
In case you don't know, Super Bowl XLV, the Green Bay Packers vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers, was hosted at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX. Turns out the thing that I remember most from my early-morning football initiation was not the teams or the score but this colossal, bedazzled stadium.
The stadium's architects will say that it is the world's largest, most technologically advanced entertainment venue. The stadium site covers 73 acres and can hold up to 100,000 fans. The stadium boasts the most spectacular column-free room in the world, stretching a quarter-mile long, and has the largest retractable roof in the world, about 660,800 square feet. The price tag:: $1.1 billion. Oh, and did I mention the stadium's video board? The world's largest LED display - it weighs 600 tons, has 300 million light bulbs, is the equivalent of 4,920 fifty-two inch flat panel tv's, and cost…40 million dollars.
Oh, it dazzles and it sparkles and it boggles the mind and the only word I can think of to properly describe it is...excessive.
The Super Bowl was 5 months ago and while it was a unique memory, it didn't leave a lasting impression on my life. But for some reason...real life pictures I saw this week, in my world, in my neighborhood here in Uganda, the starkest of contrasts possible, brought me back to it. Destitute and broken poverty vs. opulent and dripping wealth. Darkness, dirt, ashes and shards vs. Shiny lights, towers, brilliance and masterpiece. Nothing vs. Everything.
In a series of events that swirl in a confusion of African culture, Ugandan history, modern-day business investments and political intrigue, about 2,000 people who live a few miles away from me lost their homes, communities, and livelihoods the span of 24 hours.
The residents of Naguru and Nakawa woke up on Monday morning to find their neighborhoods surrounded by armed police. Hours later city bulldozers flattened a few homes of people who were absent, at work already…homes replete with belongings of people who live, work, have lives, and families and memories – smashed to a pile of rubble. Books, beds and blankets, pots and pans, picture albums, teddy bears…some lost the only home they had ever known and some where only left with the belongings they were wearing.
Several of our Hope Alive! children and their families lived in these neighborhoods. The facts and details of the land agreements seem murky. The land that housed these few thousand people was apparently sold by the government to a UK private development group. Instead of neighborhoods that were deemed “dilapidated” and “unfit for human habitation” there will instead be high-end apartment units, shopping, a Muslim school and other “affordable” housing units.
The other side of the story is that the residents had been warned and threatened of evictions for several years, but each time the deadline approached and passed without anything happening. I am sure that the residents again thought government red tape and political promises would keep their houses standing.
I am quite sure I am not learned enough on the cultural complications of this story, nor do I have the political savvy to comment learnedly. But I do have relationships with people who lost their homes and livelihoods and know families who were forced to split up in the name of this development process.
Emma is one of our older students, in vocational school for mechanics. He was called home from school in the middle of the day and arrived home to find his family frantically throwing all of their belongings out of the house before it was demolished. As people in the neighborhood were suddenly scrambling to find housing around the city, landlords and truck drivers took advantage of a golden opportunity and hiked prices exorbitantly. Families made agreements for rent prices they will never be able to meet financially in matter of months.
I visited Emma the day after his house was torn down. He was dirty and sweaty from loading his mother’s belongings into a lorry (aka, truck). As we sat and chatted his house was just a pile of cement blocks and rubble behind him. The sounds of a hammer striking cement punctuated our conversation – an man, a stranger to Emma and his family, was breaking the rebar out of the cement blocks that used to be their home, scavenging for anything that could be sold for money. This picture is so striking in my mind – a stranger on a heap of rubble that used to be a home, taking what he could for himself while the family sits with their belongings piled on a bed frame watching him with disconnect.
When I asked where the family had slept the night before, Emma told me they had had nowhere to go. So, they hired a policeman to keep guard and they slept outside, where their house should have been. He’s a big kid, Emma, and he seems composed but there is unmistakable sadness in the way he sits, his shoulders, his words. “Emma, were you able to sleep last night?” He shakes his head, just barely, looks at the ground and says in a small quiet voice, “No, I’m not used to sleeping outside. I’m used to sleeping in my house. I haven’t slept outside before.”
He has scratches on his forearms from working in the debris of his house and sorting through their possessions. The family members sit around, mostly without words, as the mother and older sister discuss possible living locations. I bend over to greet the grandmother, but she won’t even shake my hand or offer me her arm, telling me ashamedly that her hands are too dirty. The family will be split up now. The mother will go back to their village, 4-5 hours away from Kampala, but Emma and his sister will stay in Kampala so they can continue school and work.
They finish loading the truck and it is time for the mother to go. We gather in a small group and pray over the family. When we finish the mother goes around the group and shakes our hands, thanking us for coming. She reaches Emma last and also extends her hand to him. Instead he jumps up and grabs her in a big hug, shaking his head and saying, “No, you are my mother.”
I tell you this story not as an exploitation, not because you’ll be able to relate, but because I told Emma I would. I told him there are Christians in America who would be praying for him and his family. I tell you this story because there are many many other sad stories like it. I tell you this story because it is so easy to watch our televised Super Bowl games under glittering lights and forget that so much of the world lives in poverty, often in desperate situations. I tell you this story because some of these families had to relocate to houses that have no toilets or running water. Imagine for moment…having to go outside and pay to use a toilet because your house doesn’t have one. We forget that maybe, just maybe, it should bother us that we can spend 40 million dollars on a stadium video screen when, at the same moment in time, somewhere in the world a family will be chased out of their home because they can’t afford a monthly rent of $100.
I don’t understand it, and I’m certainly not above it.
A wake-up call to myself::
“Jesus told him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Matt 19:21
“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed.” Prov 19:17
And a reminder that God still reigns as compassionate and righteous judge of this world::
“The LORD takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people. The LORD enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people:
“It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.”
Isaiah 3:13-15
May we be people who continue to be bothered by the injustice in the world and brave enough to take compassionate action.
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