My Story...and why it matters

A long while ago, I learned of the anti-gay marriage bill being considered in the Ugandan parliament.  It actually wrecked me.  Being a liberal, lesbian, urban-dwelling, woman social worker in the third largest city in the United States (Chicago, for those of you who didn't know!) I'm usually pretty nonplussed about being OUTRAGEOUSLY opinionated and advocating for the rights of myself and others who are similarly marginalized and oppressed.  When I found out about this bill (see this recent article in the Huffington Post and/or google "Uganda Anti-Gay Marriage Bill"), I literally was speechless.  I barely, if ever talked about it, and felt generally hopeless about the situation.  When I fell in love with the country of Uganda, I started to build my life around the idea of being able to work, learn, live, and love there.  I eventually did just that for a summer in my undergraduate college life, and felt equally nonplussed about continuing my exploration of my sexuality there.  While there, I came to learn about the vast danger with this openness.  As a British colonized culture heavily influenced by the American Evangelical movement, they took these pastors doctrines as universal truths, and have since become what I see as the ultimate experimental ground (and thus highly praised in the evangelical church) for their beliefs.  I had no clue of this when I went there.  I thought I'd share my coming out story here after reading this article because I still miss the freedom and adventure of Uganda, but now I know I will not be able to safely go back there without massive structural changes.   Fair warning...this is a long post and I'm really sorry but I'm terrible at editing because (as stated earlier) I tend to feel like I have a lot to say!

Myself (right) and S (left) in Uganda, Summer 2009

*****

It was the summer after my freshman year of college.  I had come out to myself the semester earlier, after falling in love with one of my close friends.  I attended a Christian college in the Midwest known for it's non-acceptance of LGBTQ people, and I had bought into it while attending a small group Bible study that only furthered this non-acceptance in myself.  I told myself that I would never tell anyone about my feelings for women, and I would force myself to date men.  To please God, and my family.  I even promised I wouldn't write it in my journal.  That way, if I died (by whatever means), no one would ever know.  I had always wanted to go to Uganda, or more specifically, since I saw the documentary Invisible Children in my sophomore year of high school.  It became clear (to me) that the best time for me to go and fulfill that dream, was now.  So I went.  I raised the money all on my own, found an organization to volunteer with, and I went.  I remember my best friend (at the time, no longer) advised me to go "...and not think about boys.  Christian women go into the mission field all the time searching for a husband, go for yourself, and God."  I nodded and agreed, that would be easy.  But I also decided to try to forget about what I had learned about my feelings for women as well, and just focus on myself, what I was doing, and God.  

I arrived in Uganda in June of 2009.  For a month, I kept my pact with my friend, and myself.  I remember at the one month mark saying to myself, "wow, I haven't even thought about any of that shit!"  I absorbed myself into the culture (as much as I could) and fell in love with the country and friends I made there.  

Then, right at the one month mark, trouble came to Africa in the form of a woman: S.  One of the American volunteers who had been there starting in May told me that she had invited a friend of hers from college to come because she was a videographer and the organization wanted her to create promotional videos for the organization's website.  I paid no mind to this at the time, and just nodded and said I was excited to meet her.  She arrived on the day that the girl I had become closest with had left - so I truly didn't really pay much attention to her.  And, I learned, that she didn't pay much attention to me either.  At the time, my hair was plaited with an African weave in little braided dreadlocks and a hoop nose ring adorned my freckled nose, and she wasn't looking for love either.  This was a job for her.  

At first, I really disliked her.  I hadn't planned on going on safari while I was there, because I didn't raise enough money.  However, my mom offered to pay for it at the last minute, because I was in Africa, and when was that going to happen again?  So, I signed up to go with a group of people I had really connected with and everything seemed to work out fine.  Then I found out that the organization wanted S to go on safari too, to make a video, but there were too many people in the first group.  Because I was one of the last people to sign up for that weekend, they told me I would be going the next week, in the group with S, and none of my friends.  I made plans to room with one of the other girls so I could stay away from S, who I was very upset with!  

A few days before we were supposed to leave for safari, we were invited to be bridesmaids in one of the Ugandan women's introduction ceremonies.  (Basically an engagement party, but it is a MUCH bigger and more traditional ceremony than the wedding).  Per tradition: we were not allowed to have our hair in a weave.  So, my dreads had to come out.  I spent the night before with the whole house pulling fake hair out of my head and sleeping on my 80's rockstar style hair: crimped, frizzy, and greasy.  The next morning, I washed my hair for the first time in 4 and a half weeks and used a hairdryer and straightener.  S tells me this was when she really noticed me, and decided she wanted to pursue me.  Apparently it was one of those Megan Fox moments, where I walked out of the bathroom a totally different woman, flipping my hair back and forth wrapped in my towel, with the sunrise behind my head.  All of a sudden, S was at my hip the whole day.  Helping me with my hair, painting my toes, I helped her with her makeup.  I remember the way she looked at me made me want to know her better, and made me want to be around her all day long.  I decided to give her another chance too.

Throughout the ceremony, I felt her eyes adoring me, and I felt a familiar feeling rising in my gut, I desperately wanted more time with her, alone.  In the car ride home, she rested her head on my shoulder and I whispered in her ear, "do you want to share a room on safari with me?"  Yes, I totally ditched my friend.  I couldn't help it!  She nodded and smiled, and went back to resting on my shoulder.  

The weekend of safari was one of the most magical I've ever had.  (In efforts to make that sound less corny, it was magical for more reasons than just S!)  We spent the days sitting in the warm sun on the roof of safari vans roaming through the African plains, and the nights in an authentic African hut, our beds pushed together and our mosquito nets tied to drape over both of our beds.  She took the video like she was expected, but all the time with me by her side taking photos with my fancy camera.  I told her it was nice to have someone to hang back with as we did our art forms.  She told me she appreciated my help, and ended up putting me in some of her shots.  Then at night, we stayed up all night laughing and talking.  She told me everything, even that she was gay and had dated women before.  I told her that I understood, I had wondered some of the same things myself.  

After that weekend, we were inseparable.  Everyone knew that where one of us was, the other was too.  I moved into her dorm room, and chose to sleep in the bed under hers immediately when we came back.  At night, she would sneak down the bunk-bed ladder and cuddle with me under my green mosquito net.  One night, she kissed me on the cheek, and it sent shivers up my spine.  I kissed her back on the neck.  After a few weeks, a few people started being suspicious that our friendship was just "too close."  One even made a comment, "If you two were a lesbian couple, Emily would be the feminine lipstick one, and S would be the more masculine one."  We laughed half-heartedly, worried about being found out, even though we hadn't even talked about it yet.  

Finally, one night, I told S that I had wanted to sleep outside on the front porch since I got there, but hadn't been able to yet.  I told her I didn't want to do it alone.  She told me she would do it with me, she just wanted to be with me.  We put our pillows and blankets on the mattress on the porch outside and waited until everyone was asleep to go out there.  We watched the sunset over Kampala, and then I nuzzled my head into her collarbone.  She kissed my forehead and I reached my hands under her shirt, caressing her body underneath.  After a few moments of this, she stopped me, "We have to talk about this...do you have feelings for me?"  I was terrified of all the things I was feeling, so I broke down and cried while having a panic attack.  I told her I did, but I wasn't sure if it was ok for me to have those feelings.  She just hugged me closer, "I know."  I woke up and told her that I didn't believe it was ok for me to have those feelings, and she was heartbroken.  We continued to be inseparable, and doing the same things as before, because even though I didn't think it was ok for me to have those feelings - I did, and I couldn't help myself.  Neither could she.  

When I left a month later, she came to send me off at the airport.  We cried and looked at each other knowingly.  I told her we needed to talk once she got back to the States, she nodded.  After a month of skyping between Michigan and Africa, Michigan and Wisconsin, she came to visit me at my college.  There was so much left unsaid, but all those feelings came rushing back again.  The first night she slept in my lofted twin bed, there was so much tension, the air was full of it.  She held me as close as humanly possible, and I let myself fall into her.  Then, she kissed me, for real this time.  I thought to myself, now I understand.  This is what love feels like.  I also came to the realization of just how happy I was.  I had a clarifying moment spiritually soon after, I knew God was rejoicing at my happiness, and at the great relationship S and I had that was always supportive of the other.  It was going to be ok.  

After that, we continued dating long-distance.  I started slowly coming out to friends at school, many of whom are no longer my friends because of it.  I joined an underground gay support group and started meeting other people at my college who were like me, and who I could talk to about S.  S visited me, and I visited her all throughout the  year.  She even moved to my college town for a short while because she needed a way to get out of her hometown. She then got a job in the Chicagoland area, and that was when our long-distance relationship truly stabilized.  She was establishing herself in Chicago, finally being open about her sexuality with her new friends in her new city, and I was doing the same in my small-town college.  In August, we will have been dating long-distance for three long (and beautiful) years.  But this August will be different.  In May I will graduate with my Bachelors degree in Social Work.  A few weeks ago, I got my acceptance letter from the University of Chicago's Jane Addams College of Social Work for the Masters in Social Work program.  I sent in my "Intent to Enroll" letter and deposit immediately.  We've started looking for apartments in the neighborhoods we love in North Chicago, and she's started collecting furniture. In August, we will finally be together, in the same city, the same home, and sharing our lives like we've wanted to for three long years.  I'm coming home.

*The story that I've written above was submitted to What Wegan Did Next's "Love Stories" section, but has yet to be published there!  So, if you follow them and they post it in the future and it's word for word...now you know why.

une vie humaine

Here's a poem I wrote last year in (oddly enough) my french class.  I *ahem* struggled a little bit in this class, but this was the one assignment that I just knew exactly what I wanted to write about and how I would write it.  I really like how it turned out and it's a good descriptor of where I was at in life at that point and time.  I read it recently too and it is just a good reminder to myself that I need to let go of things, loosen up, stop being so hard on myself, so that I can actually live instead of constantly trying to think about, question, and ponder over my life and what is going well or not in it.

Je pense, je médite, je réfléchis,

Les pensées animent constamment mon esprit.

Ainsi est ma vie, je dois penser sans arrêter,

Afin d’apprendre davantage,

Mais à force, je suis épuisée.

Chaque jour je cherche des solutions,

Aux problèmes du monde, de la vie, de la foi,

Et je prends de nouvelles résolutions.

À la fin de la journée, je suis fatiguée

Car cela demande beaucoup d’efforts

De toujours avoir à penser.

Alors, aujourd’hui je dis que c’est assez

J’ai tout juste vingt ans,

Et j’en ai assez d’être fatiguée.

Je vois ma vie qui passe,

Dans le reflet que me renvoie ma tasse.

Je suis encore jeune et il me reste beaucoup à voir

Alors, est-ce tellement important de posséder ces savoirs?

Je pense que non,

En fait, c’est bien mieux

De laisser vagabonder ses pensées,

Et vivre intensément jusqu’à devenir vieux.

Le but de la vie,

C’est d’apprendre et de vivre intensément,

Mais en embarrassant trop son esprit,

On laisse s’enfuir les plus beaux moments.

blessed.

-Tuesday, August 11^th: Well, this day was a very interesting day. It was definitely not ANYTHING like I expected it would be, but it was exactly what I needed.

Before I left for Uganda, God laid a few images on my heart that I have (foolishly) been searching to fulfill while I’ve been here. One of the first was that God laid it on my heart to help a girl who has been infected with AIDS get her Anti-Retroviral Drugs. On my second visit to Kyampisi Community Church, I helped out a friend with the Sunday school class, and one girl in particular named Madina clung to me the entire time. She would hold my hand, and sit in my lap, rest her head on my shoulder, but she refused to smile or respond to any of my attempts at Luganda. I asked one of the pastors what was wrong with her, if they could ask her what was going on. She didn’t really respond to them either, but they told me that she had been infected with AIDS and was ashamed. I immediately remembered the image God had laid on my heart, and eagerly awaited His provision in how I could help this little girl.

By my last week, it never came.

Instead of brushing it off, and letting God take care of it, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I scheduled a doctor’s appointment with an AIDS specialist and arranged for a Ugandan, a friend of mine, and I to go to Kyampisi and pick them up today, take them to Kampala for the doctor’s appointment, and take them back, hopefully with some ARVs. I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought I was acting on God’s promptings. But truly, I was simply trying to make myself feel more fulfilled. This whole trip I’ve been frustrated by the fact that I feel like I haven’t truly done anything, even though now that I can look back on it, I know I did exactly what I was supposed to do. By taking this situation and following through with it, I felt like I could do it all on my own. That in itself should have sent up the red flag, the thought that I could do anything on my own.

We left for the village late, as is expected in Africa, though this was a bit of a harder situation. We had to take a taxi into Kampala, which took a lot longer than usual because the conductor kept stopping to pick up passengers. Then we took another taxi to Kyampisi, which took a long while to leave because we had to sit in the taxi park until the taxi was full. We arrived in Kyampisi ten minutes before our appointment was scheduled, so we had to call the doctor and reschedule for a time that was two hours later than expected, even getting my Ugandan friend to understand that we wouldn’t make the appointment in time was a task. I simply felt like everything was going wrong, and the entire car ride I was simply praying for God to take over, for God’s hand in this. But the peace I usually feel when God takes control never came. I now know it was because His hand was never in the plans I made, He never asked me to do anything, but He was going to teach me a lesson through it. I was on my own as far as this was concerned, and scared out of my wits. We met with Madina and her mom on the roadside, and she took us to see her house. I was floored when I saw her bedroom, one twin bed for the mother, and the concrete floor with some straw mats for the three children. I had decided to get them some mattresses and a mosquito net beforehand, and seeing this made me all the more determined to make that plan happen as well.

We met the kids, and I realized my first mistake: I hadn’t thought of the entire family. If one child has AIDS, it’s most likely that all of them plus the mother has AIDS. However, I simply could not afford to take them all, so I just stuck with the original plan, feeling slightly stupider and more naïve as we went to the main road to get a taxi.

We took a series of interesting rides into the city, where we were 3 hours late for our original appointment. Luckily, the doctor let us in and filled us in on the details after getting some information from the mother.

This was when we found out that no one in the family had ever been tested for HIV/AIDS, which changed a lot of things, and created a lot more complications. We had basically just informed them that the community they lived in assumed they had AIDS, possibly to spread rumors so as to “shun” them from the village, and possibly just by merely judging too quickly and with not very much knowledge. The doctor told us she would do a simple positive or negative test for both mother and daughter, and if they were negative we would be free to go. However, if they were positive, they would have to run another series of a lot more expensive tests than I was willing to pay for, they would have to attend HIV counseling sessions, then every 6 months after receiving their ARVs from the government they would have to come back for more testing which would cost them a lot more money than they could afford. So, if they were positive, out of sheer guilt, I would be basically forced into sponsoring this family, and paying their medical bills, an expense I could not afford. I was praying the entire time waiting for the results, and God is good as the results came back negative. We learned that the symptoms that the girl was showing were all from malnutrition. The doctor gave us some forms that proved that they were HIV negative, in order to quell any more spreading rumors, and sent us on our way. We dropped them off at the taxi park with enough money to get them home and left the city.

Right then, my stomach felt queasy. I could tell this was a lesson God was teaching me in a very harsh way, a little slap across the face if you will. I tried to ignore it the entire way home, but in my experience, when God wants to get your attention, He is very good at making you feel like crap until you face the facts. Steph and I were starving after our chaotic day, so we decided to walk down the street to get some rolexes (no, not the watch, it is my favorite Ugandan “snack” you can buy on the side of the road, basically a very greasy breakfast burrito.). Now, this girl is very good at being God’s little vessel for me when she needs to be. However, it was a bit harsher than usual because I truly believe that at that moment God really wanted to hit me upside the head, which she thoroughly delivered.

That night helped me release a lot of the tears and frustrations I’ve been bottling up this entire trip. It all started with thinking about the lessons God was trying to teach me through that day, and then continued on to the heartbreak I feel every single time I walk out of the house. A small rip each time I talk to someone who touches my heart, each time I hold an orphaned child, each time I witness maturity equal to my own, if not more, in a child half my age, all of these rips I have been trying to hold together with what little thread I can find, just so I can attempt to hold myself together. Tonight, they all tore open, and it’s about damn time. It felt so good to finally feel the hurt I have been holding inside of me the past two months and let it out, giving it all to God. I have some amazing friends who through my incessant, disgusting, ugly tears brought me tea and simply sat with me and talked with me when I was ready. They are a bigger blessing, even just for that night, than they will ever know.

So what did God teach me through all of this? For starters: humility, lots of it. He showed me that I am far too prideful in my spiritual maturity. That I have taken too much pride in the growth God has started in me this year and that I’ve forgotten that I still can’t effectively do anything for His Kingdom on my own. I still need Him and will always need Him. That God is not asking me to do anything. He has simply asked me to follow Him, to use my gifts to help those around me, and to just be with Him. This is something that God had started to teach me before I left for Uganda, but I kind of ignored because I wasn’t exactly sure how to just be with God, and that didn’t seem all too exciting. But I believe that this is exactly what He has called me to for the rest of my life. To just be with Him, wherever that may be. I can’t say I still understand it fully, because I'm not sure that any lesson is ever complete, but I am enjoying learning what this means right now, I am enjoying just being with God, recognizing His blessings, and living presently and fully in His Presence. [There it is again, gosh I love this.]

Lastly, that He will provide. It was very funny because after getting back, I simply could not find a good time to order the mattresses for Madina’s family and I was just praying for God’s provision. It was then that our director Sarah walked in the room saying that she had bought some mattresses for the sponsored kids and bought exactly 2 more than she needed, which was exactly the amount of mattresses I was going to buy for Madina’s family. I had to giggle at God’s snarky comment: “See Em? THIS is my provision…” He was teaching me that if He wants something done, He will get it done in whatever way He can. If He wants me to be a part of it, then He is going to throw it in my face so much that I simply can’t ignore it.

So no, this does not seem like the most pleasant of my days in Africa. But, don’t let the tears and chaos fool you, I think it was probably one of my favorite days this entire trip, a day I will always remember, a day I will always think of and smile and shake my head, because God is so good in so many ways.