Sense of Fear vs State of Security (First Night in Africa):

It’s quite amazing how ‘different’ is so often associated with ‘danger’.  When we are around what is known to us, we typically feel safe, however throw us into an unknown culture or area that we have never been around before and we get nervous, close up, and honestly get a bit scared.  It can happen in your own city as well as in a foreign land.  Sometimes these fears come from what we have seen on TV and in movies, what the news tells us, stories we hear, and sometimes they are simply just a fear of the unknown.  No matter what the reason, we are often mistaken, as our senses, emotions, and feelings do not always guide us in the right direction. This was my experience the first night in Africa.

Kampala, Uganda. 
It is 12:00 at night and the city is littered with huge piles of unbagged trash on the side of the the streets, residents in dirty threadbare clothes are wandering around with no apparent direction, men with semi-automatic machine guns are scattered around the city also wearing street clothes, not govt. uniforms, and homeless people are sleeping wherever they can find a dry spot on the ground.  Oh, and did I mention and there is not a street light or lamp on in the entire city.  This must be a dangerous city, right?  That is how I felt.  Especially when our taxi driver stopped at the steps of the Galaxy Guesthouse, the hotel where we had planned to stay for the night.  A line of 20 or 30 shadowy figures sleeping under tarps on the side of the road stopped 10 feet from the front door of the hotel.  l thought to myself, “Stephen, don’t make us stay here. Don’t even get out of the car.”  Our peace of mind is worth finding a nice place and spending a little more money on our first night in a country that two out of the three of us had never been to.  We did find another hotel.  We paid a bit more, but it was worth it.  I rested my head for the first time in Africa five floors above the city street that had me so uneasy and on edge that first night.  

We woke the next morning to the sounds of a torrential downpour.  Because of the climate, Kampala is a very open-air city, and therefore many windows don’t have glass and storefronts have doors that roll up opening fully to the city streets.  The rain was soothing.  We could hear the honking of car horns, and the voices of people going about their busy lives below us despite the heavy rain and muddy streets.  I walked out of our room and down the hall that opened up onto a balcony.  Protected by the overhang from the balcony above, I gazed out over the expansive city and immediately felt 100 times safer.  People scurrying around with a purpose.  Tons and tons of people buying, selling, and trading their goods and services to the locals and travelers from neighboring countries.  There weren’t any sidewalks and the people on foot took over the streets outnumbering the cars at least 35 to 1.  Amidst the cars crawling along honking for the pedestrians to get out of the way, were the weaving motorcycles, which immediately revealed themselves as the most practical way to get around in Kampala.  As I sat on the balcony eating breakfast looking out over the street,  I felt calm, at peace, and safe.  

Looking back, I learned a lot about sense of fear vs. state of security.  While I believe most people whom are unfamiliar with that culture would have been nervous, anxious, and fearful in that situation, I was later informed that Kampala is one of, if not the safest, citiy in Eastern Africa.  It sure didn’t feel like it, but it just goes to show that appearances and feelings can often be deceptive.  Our sense of fear, especially in unfamiliar places, is not always depictive of how safe or unsafe a place actually is.   We have an inherent fear of the unknown that is often unfounded.  This is a tough hurdle to get past but we should always strive to live by truth and not by sight. 

The truth of the matter is this: the whole time I was in Uganda, I was never made to feel uncomfortable or threatened by the actions of any individual, day or night, alone or with friends.

s

 Taken in Uganda