a rant

This post might be incredibly offensive to some for which I apologize, but it’s how I feel. You can write your own blog about it if you really disagree. But hey, I may even end up deleting for the sake of neutrality.

Very early on I noticed the difficult divergence between the foreign visitors here in Uganda. I feel as though I either completely agree with the purpose of a person’s visit, or that I could not disagree more. Almost every white person here is here for one of two reasons, to work with a non-profit/volunteer or to do missionary work. There is very little in between (aside from researchers). So when I see other foreigners here I either feel an instant connection, or a slight annoyance.

I was sitting in a café finishing up my first draft of my grant proposal, when I was distracted by a neighboring group’s conversation. This was far from the first time I overheard a group of missionaries discussing things that seriously bothered me. Like when I was in the bookstore in Kampala and I overheard two people trying to convince their friend that she was doing good Christian work here in Uganda. She replied how she believed she was unable to relate to Ugandans because she felt they do not show or have emotions…I left the store seriously pissed off, because not only could I disagree more (Ugandans are some of the most fun-loving, happy, kind people on the face of this earth you’d have to be socially inept to not connect with at least somebody here) I was pissed that people like that girl have the opportunity to come here, when so many amazing people do not. Not to mention how bad I feel for the Ugandans that have to interact with her, I would not have wanted to spend any more than the 5 minutes I did near her. Or like right now for instance, three girls are discussing how they are worried that the kids they are going to interact with won’t accept their teachings about the Bible and how they’re going to pray for the kids that do not. Sure we both might be “mzungus,” but I could not relate less to majority of the missionaries here.

I am not saying I am entirely to opposed to all missionary work, but I feel that many of the missionaries’ good intentions can actually result in more harm than good. Religious groups that come to serve and work with the Ugandan people under a certain church are very different from those that come solely to spread their religion. I honestly do not think there is much of a place in Uganda for those coming to spread their religion-ethical arguments aside-I mainly feel this way because Uganda is already an incredibly religious country, bringing more religion is not really needed. Many Ugandans do not even understand if you are non-religious-everyone is generally either Born-again, Protestant, Catholic or Muslim, but Uganda has almost every religion here-Judaism, Sikhism, Mormonism. People go to church or temple, but they do not have running water, sanitation, a stable food source-why would you come here to continue to tell them to go to church or temple? So, I do not really understand what brings groups of foreigners here to continue to preach to Ugandans about religion. Didn’t the colonizers and traders do that decades ago? The whole “spreading religion” business here is done, now pick up a shovel and work with a family to dig the household a pit latrine.