Debriefing

Prior to going to Uganda, I worked in the field of adventure education for four years, guiding groups of people through ropes courses, team-building activities, and the occasional backpacking or rock-climbing trip. In adventure education, arguably the most important part of an experience is the debrief--the time following the activity in which the group and the individuals that comprise it can reflect on and discuss what happened, identify the significance of what happened, and draw out the implications and applications of what happened. In other words, learn from their experience. When I'm in a particularly nerdy mood, I call debriefing "an exercise in hermeneutics" because it is the practice of interpreting an experience. That is why the debrief is so important.

Debriefing can also be difficult to facilitate. Very difficult. Sometimes, the challenge lies mainly in helping the group to draw connections from their experience. In these cases, the right question can be the difference between blank stares and an "aha moment." Sometimes, the challenge is in the experience and/or group itself: whatever the group experienced was too complicated or too unexpected or just too big to summarize in neat take-away points. 

According to some adventure educators, one should spend as long on the debrief as the group spent on the activity. Thus, a 20 minute activity deserves a 20 minute debrief. If this rule of thumb is accurate, then this post is probably prodigiously premature; I should be debriefing for about another nine months. Most likely, I will be. However, in the interests of answering some general questions and trying to bring this blog to a conclusion, I offer these thoughts a mere month since returning to the States. 

When I lead debriefs, I often open the conversation by asking each participant to come up with a word or phrase to summarize their experience. That gives us a place to start as opposed to asking "How was that?"--a question which some people, myself included, find impossibly vague. "How was Uganda?" Um...hot. Well, usually hot. I mean, where I was in Uganda was usually hot. That's probably not what you meant by that question, though. That is more or less how my brain usually reacts to the "how was" question. However, if you ask me what three words I would use to summarize my experience in Uganda, I'd say, "Eye-opening. Thought-provoking. And challenging." Hyphenated words totally count as one in debriefs. 

Eye-opening in what way? In the areas of politics, global and local economics, education, crime and rule of law, poverty, affluence, and different standards of living, aid and relief efforts, denominational missions and the global church, for starters. I am not going to expatiate on all of these, but allow me to flesh out a few examples. 

I think I understand better, now, when people talk about "lack of opportunity." This past year was the first time I lived where most of my neighbors had dramatically different standards of living, levels of education, and cultural norms than I. And it comes back, at least in part though not entirely, to opportunity. Think about recreation for a moment. When I lived in Ligonier, if I wanted to, I could go for a bike ride, go bouldering, go for a hike, slack-line, drive to the store, read a book, watch a movie, hang out with friends, call family at a moment's notice, play Settlers of Catan, spend a day in Pittsburgh, go to the movies, etc. Maybe your list is even more extensive. In Karamoja, my normal recreation consisted of reading, playing cards, watching movies, and slack-lining. Certainly a smaller list, But if I really wanted a particular book, I could usually go online, find a Kindle version, and access it as fast as 3G would allow. If I wanted a particular movie, and if no one on the mission had it, I could wait until someone was going to Mbale and request them to pick it up for me for a few thousand shillings (i.e. $1-2). 

What did my neighbors do for recreation? Recreation requires leisure, and in Karamoja women at least do not seem to have much time for leisure. The men play a game that looks a bit like mancala, and soccer is quite popular. From time to time, there are various celebrations in the villages and traditional dances. That's not a long list of recreational options. 

Recently, my uncle told me something that my grandfather once told him: the measure of your affluence is the number of decisions you have to make. For me, an hour of free time leads to a host of decisions: what do I want to do? Read, bake, watch something, etc.? Read. Ok, what do I want to read? A page-turner, a newspaper, a philosophical work, a novel? You get the idea. Even in Uganda, I had far more options than my neighbors. And, ultimately, I knew I was heading back to America, where I would have even more options. And options, moreover, about less trivial things. I have options about what work or study to pursue, about what part of the country (or world) I want to live in, about who I want to spend time with. My neighbors in Uganda  have far fewer options. 

Now, how should I--should we, as Christians--respond to seeing this kind of striking difference in opportunity and wealth? We are commanded to help the poor, and certainly, the standard of living in Karamoja is much less than that of middle class America. Enter my second word: Thought-provoking. Because poverty, aid, and economics are incredibly complicated. As you read this, remember that my summary word is "thought-provoking," not "enlightening." I left Uganda with more questions than I came with, and few, if any, answers. 

Let me see if I can give you a snap-shot of the complexity; although, if you want a lengthier, more articulate description, I recommend reading the book When Helping Hurts or watching the documentary, "Poverty, Inc." For starters, the idea of "poverty" is not exactly clear cut. If someone does not enjoy the same standard of living that I do, does that mean they are poor? I think I can confidently say no, not necessarily. My income as a camp intern may have put me "under the poverty line" in this country, but I hardly felt on the verge of destitution. My own experience demonstrates that one can be under the poverty line in America but live in comparative affluence in Uganda. How, then, do we define "poverty?" I think it is safe to say that "poverty" is contextualized. A living wage in Karamoja is different from a living wage in Kampala, Uganda's capital, just as a living wage in Pittsburgh is different from a living wage in Northern Virginia. My neighbors in Karamoja certainly had less material goods than I did. During the "time of hunger" before the harvest, several of the KEO teachers came to me to withdraw their savings so they could feed their families. Having enough to eat is a very real concern. At the same time, those teachers were able to work and provide food for their families. They had savings to draw on.

Of course, not everyone can work for KEO, save money, and use that money to buy food in the time of hunger. (By the way, saving money in Karamoja is a-whole-nother kettle of fish. For a variety of reasons, saving is very hard and very rare. In general, the immediate need trumps the future need. Read African Friends and Money Matters if you are interested in some explanations why.) But helping without hurting, without perpetuating a broken system or inflicting more damage--that is tricky.

Sadly, Karamoja has and continues to suffered from (presumably) well-intentioned but (apparently) misguided "help." Here are just a few examples. Because of "aid" (typically in the form of free food) given to pregnant women, the marrying age of women in Karamoja has gone down over the past decade or so. According to my sources (my colleagues at the preschool) girls not uncommonly get married at 16, 15, or 14 years of age now. Because of "aid" given to families with malnourished children, there is less incentive to feed one's child well. On top of these specific instances, there is a ubiquitous attitude of dependence and lack of initiative. After all, why work to do what someone else will do for free?

There may be many reasons why ineffective aid continues to poor into Karamoja, Uganda, and other African countries. One reason, though, is that there is a lot of money in foreign aid, and a lot of people besides the official recipient of the aid stand to benefit. Again, I highly recommend watching the documentary "Poverty, Inc." One thing that this documentary fails to mention, however, is corruption in the governments of the receiving countries. "Handling fees" are just the way things work.

The last few paragraphs may sound cynical. I don't mean to be cynical. I am merely trying to communicate a little of the complexity of the system as it stands. And I only saw a small section of the system.

Another eye-opening aspect of my time in Uganda was the realization that there is practically no problem present there that my home country does not share at least in some way. In Uganda, there is a complicated and broken system surrounding poverty, aid, and dependency; that problem is here, too. I could list other examples, but I don't want to give an negatively unbalanced impression of my eye-opening and thought-provoking experience.

My last debrief word was "challenging." One of the most challenging things for me was dealing with the language barrier. I enjoy being able to use language to communicate, and often that was very difficult whenever I was interacting with my Karamojong neighbors. But it was also eye-opening and thought-provoking.

Even though this post is already quite long for a blog post, I want to answer a few more debrief-type questions. Someone asked me the insightful question, "Did you accomplish what you hoped to?" My desire in going to Karamoja was to assist and encourage the people who live and serve and invest there on the mission field on a long(er)-term basis. Over the past year, I and the two other Missionary Associates who worked for KEO made a good amount of progress organizing the curriculum. Also, our being there enabled up our missionary of oversight to take care of other things. I tutored one of the missionary kids in math and science. And, I had the privilege of being the unofficial keeper and instigator of games. So, yes, I think I did somewhat accomplish my goal.

A commonly asked question is, "Would you do it again?" Now, this question can be a bit tricky, because it could mean, "Are you glad you went to Uganda?" or it could mean, "Would you go back to Uganda." The answer to the first interpretation is simply, yes. God opened the door; I went; I am glad. The second interpretation requires a bit more fleshing out. Would I go back to Uganda? At this point, I am about to start a two-year masters program, which I am excited for and fully intend to finish. Currently, I have no fixed plans beyond grad school. That means, in two years, if there is a need in Karamoja that I can fill, yes, I would consider going back. Living in Uganda was challenging at times, but God sustained me throughout my time there through friendships, honorary nieces, employment, and His Word. I have no doubt that if He calls me to return, He will continue to do so. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die." That is as true in Uganda as it is in the United States.