Friday morning was spent interviewing with Tim (film maker), talking about what our Bundibugyo primary schools are like and what our Bundibugyo kids really need. Larissa (intern, at seminary studying counseling) came for our weekly prayer and reflection time together. We talked about the research project she has been working on with Christ School girls - finding out more about how they view themselves and the world around them and how they choose to respond to the problems they face.
After lunch we faced some of those problems head on. We learned through some students that were willing to talk to us, that there were potentially some older male students in relationships with younger female students. At CSB our age range goes from about 12 - 22, due to the six years of education and the delays many students have while still in primary school. This can cause some problems. Just like we have statutory rape in America, we have “defilement” here. If we find students who are defiling under age girls, we have a responsibility to turn them in to the police. Unfortunately the culture of the people goes against this. In a place where women are still quite seriously property (exchanged for goats in marriage ceremonies), it seems ridiculous to claim that an older student or even a staffer doesn’t have the “right” to sleep with them. Yet we do claim that. We claim Ugandan law, to say clearly and firmly that we do not tolerate even “complicit” sex with a minor. Obviously, when a male student of twenty approaches a fourteen year old there is an unbelievable amount of pressure involved, especially given the culture of power that males have here.
JD and I took urine samples from four of our youngest girls here -ones potentially implicated in these relationships. We visited the health center for their tricky pregnancy tests which made me long for our simple “clear results” style tests. Instead we used drops of refrigerated antigen that reacts with HCG on a black glass plate. We praised God as we discovered that none of the girls was pregnant . . . Yet. Back to campus we headed with our negative results. The girls had been left to wait in the sick bay with a female staffer. JD and I sat them down and in a scene so reminiscent of my days in the Crisis Pregnancy Center I explained to them how risky their behavior was. We talked about the “gifts” those boys could give to them, STD’s, pregnancy and HIV/AIDs - an obvious and unmistakable chance here. I advised them to resist those boys - to turn in others that approach them and to focus on their studies. To become the beautiful women that they are already beginning to be and to be successful, bright and accomplished as well.
When we released the girls to meet with the discipline committee (three were sent home for the weekend and told to return with a parent, one was just sent back to classes) we walked into more drama. One of the girls had lapsed into a panic attack, not uncommon among our girls, especially during exams. Since our student body isn’t aware of the intersect between their psychology and physiology, they really believe that the students are dying from a heart attack or lung failure. And of course the students who are suffering themselves believe that they are dying. I am thankful for my experience with anxiety and the way it allows me to calmly and patiently reassure all students while understanding their fear. We sat with her awhile as she moaned and convulsed and gave her drops of soda until she recovered somewhat, a bit later she walked back to her dorm to rest.
The day closed with dinner with our ministry partners, the Barts. Yum, JD does amazing things with food. We ate, we debriefed the day, we worked on new ideas for the school, we enjoyed our sweet, sweet kids. Then Kevin and I and their son Joe headed back over to the school for Club Night. Friday nights are a sort of extracurricular time for the kids - we are a boarding school in a remote part of Uganda. There are not so many fun things for kids to do here, even in a mission school. Friday nights groups of about fifteen students meet in different clubs where they spend time engaging in activities related to “biology”, “praise and worship”, “drama”, and “technology” among others. As I walked around the classrooms a bit I saw students learning to make soap, students working with lego robotics, students learning how to sew.
I run the Storytelling Club - more on that soon.