#41 Connections

CONNECTIONS

This story begins in the 1970’s, when a man from the US (Chuck) met a
political refugee from Uganda (Abitimo) at an early childhood training
program. They made friends. He invited her and her children to play at his
family center. When her children were grown, the danger was past, and she
was ready to go back to Uganda to start a school (anther whole story), he
wanted to help. He thought with her about how to use the peer counseling
practice she had learned with him back in Uganda. His wife (Pamela) worked
with her to design fundraising materials. They stayed in touch with her
grown children (especially Aaron and Patrick), and Chuck helped Patrick
through a hard time. When Abitimo was back in the States for a longer period
of time, they gathered some supporters (including Barbara) to listen as she
prepared for the challenges of returning to a home wracked by civil war.

Fast forward to 2004. Barbara tells Pamela that there was an op-ed piece
in the paper by a reporter about that part of Uganda. (Uganda has never
been in the paper.) Pamela writes to the reporter (Carolyn) asking if she’d
like to meet a local Ugandan family with strong connections to home.
Carolyn is interested, and Pamela introduces her to Patrick, Aaron and
Aaron’s new Romanian wife (Anna). Carolyn gets Abitimo’s number in Africa,
and ends up spending a month in northern Uganda. She learns about the
school Abitimo has built, and also meets a young woman (Jennifer) who was
terribly burned in a civil war atrocity. Carolyn calls Chuck for background
information for her series, which has a prominent place in the paper in the
spring.

Readers (like Davida) respond. They want to help Jennifer. Carolyn
answers each one. A hospital offers to do surgery. Carolyn arranges for
Jennifer (now 15) to meet Abitimo and stay at her school in Uganda while
they arrange for visas. Finally it is all worked out and they fly to the
States together.

Fast forward to a month later, early 2006. Chuck and Pamela have invited
everyone to their house for dinner. They finally meet Carolyn in person,
along with her husband (Tim) and five-year-old daughter (Olivia). Patrick
arrives and helps Chuck in the kitchen while Pamela plays with Olivia, who
is sorry that Patricks children weren’t able to come. Anna brings Abitimo
and Jennifer who have been living in the family house (Aaron is at work).
Davida doesn’t arrive till dessert.

Over dinner Pamela learns that Tim and Carolyn have also lived in
Cambodia, Macedonia and Rwanda. It is the first step in a promising new
friendship. Carolyn jokes with Jennifer, in their limited half dozen common
words in Acholi and English, with Abitimo and Anna joining in. Withdrawn
and silent when she first arrived, and terribly disfigured by burns,
Jennifer laughs and laughs. (Tim and Carolyn have gotten to know her on the
long weekly drive to the hospital with Abitimo. ) The young people get tired
of table conversation and go off to play together. Olivia is eager to show
Jennifer the letters of the English alphabet that she has been mastering,
and Jennifer is eager to learn.

The grownups get to work to revive the corporation that the family had
set up years ago, to create a non-profit to support the school and the work
for peace in northern Uganda. They want to raise money to pay Abitimo, who
is near retirement but doesn’t yet qualify for Social Security. Chuck leads
the discussion. Patrick has gathered together all the old documents. Davida
offers the help of her lawyer. Pamela, and then Patrick, zip around the
corner to the African video store to make copies. The group drafts a mission
statement and clarifies a to-do list. Dinner ends with appreciation for new
friends and old, and for this opportunity to do something together.

When this story began, there were just two. Now it includes not only
Abitimo and Chuck, but Pamela, Patrick, Aaron, Anna, Carolyn, Jennifer, Tim,
Olivia, unnamed doctors, Davida, Barbara, and everyone’s friends and
families, spreading out wider and wider, all around. This description is
the merest summary, the barest plot line. There are whole chapters, filled
with other people, that haven’t been told. And the story is far from over.
Maybe it is really just begun.

It has grown through a collection of simple, ordinary acts—-greetings,
offers, requests and invitations: How are you? I’m pleased to meet you.
Would you and your children like to come? Can I help? Did you notice that
opportunity in the paper? Would you like to meet somebody? Can you help?
I’d be glad to do what I can. Can I give you a lift? Would you like to
learn something I’ve just learned? Shall we see if we can do this?

It is a story of people being human—-reaching out to make connections
with each other, taking those simple ordinary acts seriously. In the
process of reaching, they discover that barriers of age, language,
nationality and race are paper-thin, no match for our common humanity and
our deep underlying desire to have this world be right.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 2/06


Some things that have given me hope recently:

Automotive students from a poor urban school (West Philly High) beating
Honda, Toyota and MIT, among others, to win an international alternative
energy car competition.
A group of twenty people who care about the environment each sharing
something they love about this earth, then going around the circle again
because there was so much more.
An older man from an inner city neighborhood speaking of the community he
has nurtured there, through horses and rabbits and vegetables and Boy Scouts
and listening and youth looking after their elders.
A young woman who has risen above her racist upbringing, while still loving
and valuing her family.