How are you, my wife?

Family means different things to different people. This is true of where I live in Australia, but coming here to Uganda, and even broader than that, my experience of a small portion of African life, has taught me that the concept I have of family is fairly small. After all, when someone asks about my family, I immediately think of my parents and three siblings. Beyond that, I do have other family but wouldn't think of calling my dad's brothers, Dad. But here uncles are only on the mother's side and aunts only on the father's. Your dad's brothers you call, Dad and your mothers sisters you call, Mum. Confusing? YES! Added to which your brother, father and grandfather before you get married are your husband, and corresponding to that your sister, mother, grandmother are your wife (this is not some messed up incestuous weird cultural practice, so chill, let me explain).

Some of my Australian and Ugandan family together in Uganda in August 2011

My friend Joel was explaining this to me the other day as I sat with him at an Introduction/Give away function. Never mind all the traditions associated with them that I don't understand. There is one part of the Give away where the brother of the sister who is going to get married, feeds her cake and vice versa. Similar to the way a husband and wife would when they cut the cake at a wedding. The reason for this is for the brother to say goodbye to his 'wife', as his sister, once she is married, will no longer clean his clothes and cook him food (let me assure you that my Western views of marriage are severely tested over here). Joel goes on to tell me that when he rings his Grandma, he will greet her by saying "How are you my wife?"

Eating lunch at the Introduction/Giveaway function where someone gave me their oluwumbo, hanging out with some friends at the pool that I didn’t know anything about and my hair after taking out the braids and before washing.

So with all these confusions (and it gets more confusing when cousins also are brothers and sisters), I still see something beautiful in the way families relate here. Yes, there is much dysfunction, but when it works it's amazing. Someone the other day was telling me that children (and marriages) are community affairs. Children are for the community. So if you see a child misbehaving, you are free to discipline them. And if you see a man beating his wife, you would get involved because what he is doing is not good and if you see it it's your responsibility to do something about it.

But I was also talking to another friend the other day. Her parents were killed in the Rwandan genocide. She was five. Her older sister took her to safety in Tanzania where she spent the next ten years. Then she came, at the age of fifteen, to Uganda. Alone. In a country where people weren't speaking her language. Somehow she managed to get through to Senior Three, which is the third of six years of senior schooling. Now she runs her own business, a small shop where she is earning enough to live on. Her family now? The church that we both attend. The friends she has made here in Uganda. We are her family

I was also talking with another friend who was telling me about his life growing up. At the age of ten he had been abandoned by both his parents (who were not together any longer) to the care of his aunt who provided little more than a roof over his head. No sense of family or love. He started working in a washing bay washing vehicles to support himself through school. And now as a grown man he is still working to provide himself a living and to be able to follow his dreams. He told me that through it all he has known from a very young age that God is his father and the one taking care of him.

I happened to go to the opening service for one of our HOPE schools here in Mbarara, where several of our sponsored boys are. The boys are no different from any others, can't sit still, don't pay attention, always making noise. But two of them gave testimonies, both with similar content. These boys used to live on the streets or in intolerable home situations. One of the boys told how he used to steal people's saucepans to break down into scrap metal to sell so that he could buy food. Sometimes he would take the very hot saucepan while it was sitting on the charcoal stove cooking dinner. These boys lived desperate lives. But they were rescued and they now have a family. They no longer steal. And the way they danced during the short service showed a real, true joy.

In Psalm 68, it says that God is a Father to the fatherless, a defender of the widows and that He will place the lonely in families. I myself have experienced that here, far from my family and friends. God has been faithful to me. He has given me a family to live with and a church filled with people who have accepted me even though I may seem very different to them.

As an organisation Australia HOPE International may be building schools and sponsoring kids but we work with partners who are building family and that is the business that God is into. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, there is someone who needs to be part of a family.

Maybe you are the family they need.

Be blessed

bron