Biabo jo?

(Disclaimer: This blog is long and completely unedited and my journal had so many arrows moving different paragraphs around that there's a good chance what you are about to read will confuse you at some point :)

Ok so I have an hour and a half before I'm supposed to leave for Oditel. And I'm hoping that because I've had a nap and because I have a deadline, I'll somehow get out all the words I want to say that they'll make sense and it will be a complete thought - but I make no promises.

When I was in Mississippi about a month ago, I saw that my cousin RIna was reading a book called Bittersweet. I read the back cover of it and it sounded like something so perfectly written for the season of life that I've been in for the past few months. I didn't even say anything to her about it (I was afraid she'd just give it to me, like she does with everything because she's wonderful, but I just wanted her to keep her book for herself :) So I went on Amazon and bought it because she's my Rina and I really don't need to know anything about a book besides the fact that she's reading it!

Now you'll have to forgive me because I feel like Shauna Niequist has stolent all my thoughts and put them into a book (she even lived in southwest Michigan for 6 years!) So now I'm forced to come up with something new to say and to fit it all into one blog :)

So I started reading this book on the flight from London to Entebbe - about a woman and this time in her life when so many hard things were happening for herself and for those around her and how she had to learn to find the beauty and the good and to see what she coul learn from each terrible thing. (Please don't let me garner your pity by making you think my life has recently been terrible. Instead, you should know it's been marked by seeing the pain and burdens and struggles of so many people who are closest to me.)

I'm not even half way through Bittersweet and have thought at least 20 times that I wanted to blog about something she's written. But this is what I read today tha tmade me literally drop my Kindle to start writing. In talking about dealing iwth people who are going through a hard time, she said, "Say something, every time, and ask the simplest questions: How are you? What was it like? What can I do?"

This is a lesson I've learned over and over recently, particularly and patiently from my dear friend, Michelle. Sometimes you ask, and thne you ask again to see what the real answer is. SOmetimes you know you should ask again, but you don't because you're not willing to spend the time and energy that you know you should. And sometimes, people really are just good.

So yesterday, I was with a woman named JoAnn (she's a year older than me, lives at Joseph's house, and has befriended me and helped me many times in my few days here). As we walked into Joseph's house, I said "biabo jo?" ("how are you?" in Ateso) to another woman who lives at Joseph's. When we got inside, JoAnn laughed and said, "When we say 'biabo jo?' to someone, we only say it as we pass each other. But when you say it, you always stop and look so concerned and serious."

I'm living in an area of a third world country that has been marked by poverty, starvation, corruption, war, not enough clean water, and not enough real men for a long time. It makes me sad that it really stands out so much that I would want to stop for someone when there are so many people who need someone to stop for them. And I'm quite certain that in the next two months, someone who answers "etamit" ("I'm fine") will not actually be fine. Though I don't think I'll ever be able to finish the conversation in Ateso, I hope there's at least one person who knows I really am serious and concerned, that they really do answer my question, and that I really do stop to listen to them.

We live in a broken world with so much hurt. While it's easy to rejoice with those who rejoice, I'm just now learning to mourn with those who mourn. Some people have unimaginable pain and some people have much less, but I hope that for today, you'll talk and listen a little more honestly.

Time to go see my baby boy :)

Love and miss you all!
Caitlin