Be

Fill up your mind with all it can know / What would we be without wishful thinking?
-Wilco, “Wishful Thinking”


When I was little, these are the things I wanted to be when I grew up:

1. Zookeeper
2. Astronaut
3. Writer (thanks to my 3rd grade teacher)
4. Botanist (in 4th grade I loved plants, quite a lot, haha)
5. Teacher, but still had astronaut leanings
6. Teacher (realized that there are now machines instead of astronauts)
7. Scientist, biology of any sort
8. M.D.

There are, of course, other jobs that I have wanted (and had!), the kind of jobs that you think, "At some point in my life, I would like to have the experience of being a ---" and then you do it. (That's why, for example, I was a waitress the summer before last (loved it), and, that’s also why I’m writing to you from Uganda.) One thing I haven't done that I really want to do is get a temporary job as a flower delivery person for Valentine's Day. I think that this could possibly be the best job ever- you get to give random people flowers and make them smile about love, all day long. Heck, you wouldn't even have to pay me, I would do it for free, using my own car. Someday, I will do this. Anyway, that's not the point.

The point is this- when you're little, people ask you what you want to be when you grow up.

Today I was brainstorming possible projects to do here at my organization... I was thinking of starting a nurse shadowing program for the secondary school students who are interested in going to nursing school. I was wondering how many students might be interested in such a program, and then I realized- maybe no one. I realized, with an awful, immediate certainty that brought tears to my eyes: here, no one asks what you will be when you grow up.

I don't know why, but I hadn't really thought about it before. Here, particularly for girls, there is no planning for your future, no high school counselor, no career day, no unsatisfying personality/aptitude test to see whether you should be a doctor or a florist. (I always get florist; maybe my future Valentine’s Day job is what it’s all about, after all.) But here, there is no “exploring future career options,” no summer science camp, no take-your-daughter-to-work day, no dreaming of going to the moon in a rocket ship.

I never really realized that asking, “What do you want to be?” is not just asking what you might like to do, it’s implying that you need to be something, that you need to do something with your life. No one implies that here, particularly for women.

In America, I actually think we imply it too much- does little Suzie really need to be an Arabic, Chinese, and English-speaking star soccer player, oil painter, concert violinist, and math club president by the time she's six years old? No, what she needs to do is go play in the dirt, because she has years ahead of her to think about what she wants to be. And, people my age are often annoyed by the question- they don’t know what they want to “be,” even after college (or after Peace Corps!), and they don’t enjoy people implying that they should know, now, or ever. I can sympathize, but—if you are annoyed by the question of what you’re going to be—know that being annoyed by such a question is a luxury. Some people are never asked, never expected of, never encouraged to be.

It’s ironic- earlier this month I was lamenting to Min about how planned-out my life is: 4 years of high school, 4 years of college (with 10-week quarters, and you always knew what number week it was), 27 months of Peace Corps, 4 years of medical school, then residency… but now I am thankful for that seemingly rigid, by-the-numbers plan, I am thankful that I have a plan at all, I am thankful that people encouraged me to plan, I am thankful for “Expanding Your Horizons” and “Star-Spangled Summer” in elementary school, I am thankful for middle school assemblies that I dozed through, I am thankful for Mrs. Bergsmann, who at 9:30 filled out my UofC recommendation letters and at 10:30 encouraged the other girls at my high school to at least think about enrolling in junior college, even if they were pregnant, and I am thankful that there was a whole office of “Career and Placement Services” at UofC— no matter how unhelpful they were, at least they existed.

Mostly, I am thankful that people asked me the question, “What do you want to be?”

And so, slightly disheartened, my brainstorming continued. The schools here are on holiday right now—the equivalent of summer vacation—but I hope to arrange a meeting with the headmistresses sometime next month. In addition to (or before) a nurse shadowing program, maybe we can start a guidance counselor program, a let’s-think-about-future-careers program, a be something program. Or, at least just institute the idea of thinking more than a year in advance. I’ll let you know how it goes.



To conclude-
What YOU can do, today:
Find a little girl, and ask her what she wants to be when she grows up. It doesn't matter whether she wants to be a zookeeper or an astronaut or a waitress or a doctor or a florist— you'll do her more good than you can ever ever know, just by asking.

Feverish

Yesterday was my funniest Luganda mistake thus far. (Funniest mistake that I know of, anyway!) One of the sisters came into the clinic and said that she didn’t feel well. I asked her, “Olina omusajja?” But, what I should have said was, “Olina omusujja?” I intended to ask if she had a fever, but instead I asked if she had a man!!! We all had a good laugh. Well, actually, the sisters laughed first- I didn’t recognize my error. After they calmed down enough to explain things, I laughed too. :) Now I can’t ask the nuns about fevers without chuckling to myself, and I doubt I will ever forget the word “omusujja.”

Address

I have a new address for snail mail. (And I LOVE snail mail!)

Jess Wilson
PO Box 733
Masaka
UGANDA, EAST AFRICA

If you sent something to the old address, no worries- I'll still get it.

Picture!

"There is a road that meets the road that goes to my house and how the green grows there..."
-The Decemberists, "July, July!"


The road that goes to my house:
If you look really closely you can see two nuns (in blue) taking a walk!

I'm working on getting some pictures up! :)

Yay Internet!

I got a ride into town today, so… I’m here! I’m hoping to come to town to check my email about once a week! Things are slow slow slow but I’m still having fun! Last night we had a celebration for some of the nuns because it was their anniversary of becoming nuns- one of them has been a nun for 50 years, and another for 60! Can you imagine? It was great, a humongous dinner (as always!), lots of singing, lots of smiles. Life is good...

Shots

Tuesdays and Fridays are immunization outreach days- we hop in the back of an “ambulance” and go hurtling down dirt roads to villages in the middle of nowhere and give immunizations to all the kids! Riding in the back of a huge van and riding on dirt through nothing but green green green is so incredibly fun! It makes me smile, every time. It’s absolutely beautiful here- hilly and SO green- not the dark pine green of East Texas, but the green of banana trees and papyrus and palm trees and plants I’ve never seen before… jungle green.

So, I have to tell you about last Friday! Ok, so first we get up and drive down one of the beautiful aforementioned roads, and then we get to this village- the site of our outreach is a church. And the church- it’s four walls, dirt floor covered with straw, rough wooden benches for pews. Along the wall are some cowhide drums. The woman who let us in grabs one of the drums, goes outside, and starts beating it. I ask what she’s doing… the answer? Alerting the people of the village that we have arrived. Sometimes, I just have to laugh, a lot, that this is really my life- I’m really in the middle of nowhere in a church with a straw floor and there is really a woman banging on a drum to let people know that we’re there. Craziness! I feel like I’m in a movie sometimes. So, then the moms and kids started coming! Right now, I’m not doing much on immunization days- just holding kids and stuff, but in the future, these are the villages where I will possibly go and do AIDS outreaches. For now, it’s just important that the people see me and meet me and know I’m here. Most of the time I don’t even realize how much I must stick out… if you grow up seeing all kinds of people, you don’t really think about how weird it must be to see a different-looking person in a sea of sameness. The kids here don’t shout and scream “muzungu,” they just stare, wide-eyed; sometimes the really little ones are afraid, other times they smile and laugh.

Here!

I got to my site Friday evening, didn’t do anything too exciting. My counterpart came and saw me and said a nice prayer for me; I unpacked a little and then went to bed. Saturday morning was more unpacking, and Saturday afternoon was so much fun! The nuns that I’m working for were founded on 3 December 1910, so this weekend was full of celebrations! Saturday we marched around the village, accompanied by a brass band- just imagine me and hundreds of nuns all dressed in blue and marching down a dirt road and singing! It was great fun!!! Sunday, the actual anniversary date, was a huge celebration- first, there was a four-hour-long mass, then lunch, then lots of speeches and singing and dance performances. Also lots and lots of fun! Today I went to the clinic in the morning, and then my counterpart did some errands in the nearest big town, and I also got to go along. Things are good so far!