Gucci Is Not an Acholi Word
The first thing that I noticed about Carol was her fancy pointed high-heeled shoes as they sank into the red dust. Clearly she had not anticipated where she was going today when she got dressed, what the Acholi Quarter really was. I had been trying to arrange a meeting with her for the past month. Today as rag tag children crowded around her car chanting “Muzungu, muzungu, muzungu”, I saw a lovely woman in fitted designer jeans, a silk blouse, and Italian leather shoes hesitate to leave her car. I wondered if it had been a good idea to bring her to meet the beaders and to learn more about BeadforLife.Carol works for the American Embassy. I had heard that she might be a source of high quality magazines for making the beads. I had hoped to enroll her on to the Bead Team. She seemed like a possible ally in finding the raw materials for the bead project.
As Carol alighted from her SUV children rushed forward to grab her hands, happy to accompany foreigners through their dirt village. In the total absence of toys, books, TV, radio, and snack food our arrival broke up the children’s routine. We strolled around the village, a small parade of white women and black children. We visited the rock quarry where Acholi refugees eek out a dollar a day in the hot sun breaking huge boulders into small pebbles. The high heels were struggling, scrambling up eroded hillsides, stepping through rock piles, and avoiding mud. The barefooted children scampered effortlessly.
Arriving at the meeting place of the beaders we were welcomed with bright smiles. All of the beaders wanted to shake hands with Carol and hug me. “You are most welcome”…”So happy you are here with us” Welcome and please be at home”. As the greetings continued Carol’s cell phone rang. Annoyed by the interruption and the incongruity of cell phones in the poorest of conditions, she stepped outside. When she returned I asked the beaders how many of them had no magazines with which to make beads. About 70 % raise their hands. Ahha! Carol stands up and says she will be happy to get us magazines. The air is filled with clapping and hooting and ululating accompanied with smiles of appreciation.
A week later at the embassy cafeteria….”Torkin, I need to tell you what happened to me in the Acholi Quarter last week.” Carol looks down at her lunch of Malaysian salad and tumeric rice with raisins, trying to gather something inside of herself.
“As I drove up that horrid road and desolate hillside I started feeling very anxious, unsafe…afraid. Like something bad was going to happen to me. I did not really want to open the door. All I could think about was that I was going to ruin my new Italian shoes. The children were dirty and they wanted to hold hands with me. I knew I was going to get sick, some unknown lurking virus was on each little hand. I wanted to pull away but felt unable to and I just kept holding all the dirty little hands clinging to mine. I began to think of the illnesses that can be passed from hand to hand. I walked through the village not daring to really look into any of the houses. I did not want to see. The whole time I kept smiling wishing I could get away. Then one of the small children with a huge belly and skinny arms smiled such a big smile up at me I reflexively caught my breath. “Oh dear! What is happening to me?’ I thought as panic set in.”
Carol’s eyes are beginning to tear up. She bites her lip and takes a breath.
“As all of the women were greeting me with such warmth and obvious cheer I found myself disarmed, truly welcomed. I looked at the women as they came one by one to shake my hand and my panic began to subside. They had light in their eyes and a genuine feeling of being glad I was there. I did wish I was dressed more appropriately, but I was so glad I was in that mud hut with these women.
On the way back to my car I dared to really look squarely into one of the hovels no bigger than my closet. In my two years in Uganda that is the first time I had let myself see poverty. I saw nothing but a straw mat and some sheets or old clothes! I mean they had nothing. NOTHING.
I went home and bust into tears, weeping from such a deep exposed place of horror and confusion. I wept in the shower as I washed off the red dust. I wept in my closet looking at all of my fancy clothes. I wept as I dropped to my knees and looked at a row of shoes. I couldn’t stop talking to my husband, Bill, about the beaders, about the poverty, about my tears. I called my mother in America. I called my daughter in West Virginia. I just had to keep the afternoon alive. What is happening to me I thought?Since then my husband and I have been talking about our lives, how we have been about doing well, having an interesting career, enjoying life, being together. Now we are both wondering how we could have spent so many years just paying attention to our own circles. We want to reorient our lives so that they can help others…something a little more direct. We have been talking about how focused America is on personal pleasures and on consumption. I mean people really think they need six or ten or 20 pairs of shoes. I don’t know where all of this is taking us but it feels exciting, more alive, and more essentially valuable. I can’t thank the Acholi women enough for their open welcome to me…they can never know how they broke open my heart and set me free.”
