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Jesuit Journeys
Fall 2000
Computer connection with Africa
links hearts, powers up possibilities
After working for more than a year to collect and refurbish computers for east Africa, Ignatian Associates Tim and Ruth Leacock decided to travel to Uganda and help the Sisters of the Sacred Heart at a rural boarding school there prepare to leap into the computer age. As this account from Ruth's journal indicates, the Leacocks took a leap of their own.
Second of two parts
Lessons my husband Tim and I would learn from Uganda and her people began to unfold early in our 14-day journey from Omaha to east Africa: embrace the reality, pray the plan, lean into the pace and rhythm of African life.
TUESDAY, JUNE 20 - My fingers trace the outline of the approaching foreign landscapeframed in the window of a British Airways jet. We are preparing to land in Entebbe, where we had planned to catch up with a shipment of computers, take 22 to a boarding school for girls in rural Kalungu, set up a lab, and train the instructors to teach computer classes.
But days before
our June 18 departure, we learned the shipment had been delayed. Fr. Jim Strzok, SJ, a Jesuit heading up this project, helped us devise Plan B. Rather than meet 22 computers in Africa, Fr. Strzok, Tim, and I would bring three units with us, set them up as prototypes, and train staff not only to teachstudents, but also to assemble the original shipment when it arrives.
THURSDAY, JUNE 22 - We have crossed eight time zones. Half of me is awake, half of me is asleep. All of me is still trying to believe I'm at the Kalungu Girls Training Center. I sit in a room surveying the computer components. There are casualties from the 30-hour flight. A monitor is broken, its glass neck shattered. One printer is missing an AC/DC adapter, another needs the voltage converter packed three months ago in the original shipment, but now en route somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean.
I give thanks for what we DO have - two useable computers and one working printer. Though we had hoped for more, this will do to demonstrate software and serve as models to correctly set up the other computers and printers still to come.
"Despite all that has gone wrong, there is a grace-filled peace about this place as we adapt and move to the rhythm of African life. That rhythm plays daily just outside the door to our quarters where a well in the main compound, the source of so much activity, is hand pumped to a slow, deliberate beat. Up, down - the high-pitched clang of metal on metal, then a low thoooomp. Like a musical bass, it anchors all the sounds of Kalungu and the voice of its hopeful people. Pole, pole (pronounced poe-lay, poe-lay and meaning slowly by slowly) the girls work the pump. It is, for me, the heartbeat of Africa. It is becoming my own.
Tim and Sr. Susan Namkya arrive for the morning's work. The computer power cords and outlet strips have the wrong plugs. Africa not only moves to a different rhythm, but also runs on a nents.
Note: subheader for page 16 pictures
Tim Leacock and members of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart (above) unpack, organize, and begin assembling the first computers. Workers (below) put a fresh coat of paint on the walls of what will become the permanent computer lab at the Kalunga Girl's Training Center.
MONDAY, JUNE 26 - It's been six days since we approached Entebbe, my fingers tracing images on the airplane window, my feet in African skies. The pump still beats slowly-by-slowly. There are advances and setbacks.
In shifts of seven, the students stream to the makeshift computer room, timid yet eager for their first-ever computer experiences. They giggle en masse as each taps the keyboard, trying to track the arrow on the monitor while fingering a runaway electronic mouse. Their wonder is balm, their enthusiasm a welcome prayer, because the newly purchased Ugandan stabilizers have been a hassle. Two are mislabeled and have the wrong power rating, one is missing a plug, and all have oversize fuses. The good news: only one leaks current profusely. The bad news: I grab the one that gives the really nasty shocks.
We scramble and by 4 p.m. some stabilizers have been exchanged and some rewired. All are equipped with new plugs. Teachers, students, and staff gather around our demo computer, now resting proudly on the sheen of a newly varnished table in the official, freshly painted computer lab. New ceiling fans cast breezes on the assembly and the tangle of cords and hardware they are studying. It is a come-together moment. But it is short lived.
Tim and Mr. Kivumbi, the local electrician, return with more bad news. They have traced the new wiring in the lab back to its source and discovered some of it leads to smaller, inadequate lines. Excluding the single breaker just installed in the computer lab, there isn't another fuse or breaker anywhere in the multi-building compound. Parts of the electrical system will need an overhaul to safely support 22 incoming computers.
Pole, pole. We embrace what is; we lean into Africa's rhythm. The looming problem is back-burnered while we focus on the joy of the present. One computer will not tax the system and it is time to throw the switch and boot up the new lab's first computer. One minute to show time aaaaand…
Nothing! No show. No celebration. Power to the entire region is out. The timing of the outage is so incredible that frustration turns to laughter. We head to the local parish for tea. Step by step, Tim's shoes tread the dusty, red earth as he already begins forming a new plan to rewire the compound and a means to pay for the work.
SATURDAY, JULY 1 - The beat of the pump has receded. Body high in the sky, part of me is still in Kalungu, still in that little corner of Africa, and my heart is full. We are on the way home. So much went wrong, yet everything went right. The lab is being rewired. Our new friends have been introduced to software and hardware. They have lesson plans, electrical diagrams and a color-coded system for hooking up the 22 computers still to arrive.
We accomplished our goal. More importantly, my heart has received lessons from a gracious God and a poor but generous people. Embrace the reality, pray the plan, and lean into the rhythm of life. Still, there is so much yet unprocessed and so much yet to be understood - a feeling of mystery as large as the continent I am leaving.
My finger traces shapes on the airplane window, around the airport, around the villages, around the experience as if to somehow understand the whole of it. Amidst the singing and the challenges of the project, I fell in love with the Ugandan people. I fell in love with their simplicity, their warmth, and their gentle pace.
I have also fallen more deeply in love with God. Perhaps the edges I trace are the contours of Divine face. It has been a productive time. It has been a holy time in a holy place. My eyes brim with unexpressed emotion and I am too embarrassed to blink. Anthony DeMello was right - we sanctify all we are grateful for.
Ignatian Associates:
Who are They?
Ignatian Associates are lay collaborators who have a very close relationship with the Jesuits of the Wisconsin Province. Associates commit to the Jesuits and promise to live a simple life. They pledge fidelity to the mission of the Gospel, the Jesuits, and other associates, and, after a two-year formation period, they make promises to be available for service.
For additional information about Ignatian Associates,
contact Stephanie Russell, director of formation,
at 414-937-6949 or 800-537-3736. |
