"We Tremble Not For Him"
Dr. Ruby Dunlap's Uganda Fulbright Blog
What did I expect the most trusted and skilled exorcist in the Mukono area to look like? Perhaps a fierce intensity out of the eyes? Perhaps either wildly careless or flamboyant clothing? In any case, his speech should be full of emotionally charged religious utterances, something befitting regular contact with the world of demons and evil spirits. That world, which few Westerners are likely to take seriously, the world relegated to a tiny minority of secretive devotees in the West, is taken very seriously in Uganda and by the vast majority of Ugandans. When it is taken that seriously by the locals, expatriates do well to attend seriously to it as well. Here is a not unusual bit in another of Uganda’s English newspapers, the 9 November, 2009, issue of The Daily Monitor:
Masaka man accused of witchcraftResidents of Kijjomanyi Village in Kalungu Sub-county in Masaka District on Friday burnt the house of a 72 year old man and killed his goats, accusing him of bewitching them. The residents accused Mr. Felix Ssali of using spirits to kill 15 people between June and August. The district police chief, Mr. Moses Mwanga, said investigations are ongoing.
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The non-verbal expression, “eh,” is most consistently noticeable in North America among English speakers dwelling near and around the U.S.-Canadian border. It shares company with such verbal expressions as “you bet!” a response so characteristic of the area that when an agricultural expert from Minnesota answered a question with it recently, I couldn’t help but smile with memories of miles of northern forests and lakes riding in on the coattails of “you bet!” 
Along the stone retaining wall outside our apartment is a row of snowy white daylilies. That is, I call them daylilies because of their leaf, stem and bud shapes. If not actually a daylily, they must be close kin to the daylily tribe. The flowers start out as a daylily bloom, a suggestion of a white trumpet on a slender stalk. But then the Designer of this flower changed His mind. Instead of the expected trumpet shape, the flower turns into a loose fringe of white, the petals going abruptly from wide to narrow in a graceful drape. I do not know which gives me more pleasure, the recognition of a familiar plant type or an unexpected variation in that type. This daylily illustrates my conviction that our appreciation of diversity needs to be anchored in an appreciation of unity. Otherwise, diversity becomes mere difference and mere difference seems to me to degenerate easily into competitive hostility among differences. 
As Dad and I walk down to the track most mornings around 6:30 AM for exercise, we meet many elementary school children in neat uniforms headed for school. They walk purposefully and soberly but their faces break out into smiles as we greet them. “Good morning,” Dad says, “God bless you. God loves you. Have a good day at school.” And they beam with pleasure, receiving the gift as Dad intended to give it.
“Does the U.S. have a big problem with culture?” asked Eva, her small face full of concern. We had just finished reading and discussing Wellman’s chapter on “The Diverse Learning Needs of Students” in the 2009 Billings’ textbook on Teaching in Nursing. The “problem” in this chapter (pp. 21-22) is expressed partly as a catalogue of failures, failure to recruit sufficient minority nursing students and nursing faculty, failure to adequately support the minority student, etc. “Well, children in the U.S. go to similar schools,” I said, “and almost all of us speak the same language. We do have some cultural issues but I don’t think we have a ‘big problem’ with culture. What about Uganda?”
Members who could from UCU’s health sciences department spent the weekend in a retreat at Sipi Falls near the Kenya border. That I survived this experience is testament to a God in heaven. It all began innocently enough with Faith, one of those splendidly capable young women such as Belmont’s school of nursing has in Karen and Heather, telling me “we would do a little walking.” Faith had organized the whole thing, all the meals and the stay at the Crow’s Nest at Sipi Falls. Why that name didn’t make me suspicious I’ll never know.
Edward, a physician, who is the administrator of a MBA in healthcare. Francis, one of the instructors for their BS in community health, an important non-nursing health profession in developing countries. Clarissa and Selah (pronounced Sell-ah) from the MPH in maternal-infant health. Mike told me it’s actually an MPHL (MPHLeader) degree, open to anyone with a previous bachelor’s degree and very popular; it has UCU’s largest enrollment for a health profession. Tom was our driver. And finally, Grace and the other Faith, two of my MNS students and also faculty for the RN-BNS program. Here’s a photo of our first meal stop, lunch on Friday. I had beans and rice with greens, all delicious. 
Karen Drake is a tall, strong woman whose primary home is now Minneapolis but who has spent most of her life on foreign missions of one kind or another. She lived with her parents in Japan until she was 17 years old, becoming fluent in all things Japanese. 
The hour of reckoning, the day of doom, must elicit a look on the human face which is among those things transcending place or time. We arrived at Uganda Christian University at the end of the first week of final exams and just before the beginning of the second week when pen to paper or mouse to screen stand in as prototypes for that Apocalyptic opening of books. 
That Ireland has no snakes is hardly more remarkable than that Germany has few enough flies and mosquitoes to make the leaving open of windows and doors during pleasant weather a practical option. The meeting of wind with curtain, the outdoor garden with indoor polished wood unimpeded by inelegant mesh screens, is one of the pleasures of being in Germany, ranking behind German bread but, for me anyhow, considerably before the autobahn.