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Gathering at the Table…Thoughts on Thanksgiving from Africa

All over America, the Thanksgiving Feast is on peoples mind.  Groceries are being bought in record numbers, invitations are sent out. People are taking to the road from coast to coast to be with family and friends, to renew friendships, to reconcile, to forgive, to eat together and to share in the blessings of the past year.  Even I in Uganda have ordered a stuffed turkey at my Ugandan butcher, this is the first turkey I will cook in Africa and to say the least, I am excited.  Somewhere I am told I can find a jar or tin of cranberries, and I of course will do my best to locate the store where the elusive berry can be found.

Thanksgiving, a time for family, for sharing, for creating memories and talking about the times past.  We gather around tables of all sizes and shapes, made from all kinds of wood and other material, covered with table cloths and decorated with our finest dinnerware, candles, flowers, treats, linen napkins, wine, sparkling and drinks…ah the feast of thanksgiving in America, what a delight. A non-religious holiday but is often the one time of the year where a form of grace and prayer is heard at the table.

In Africa, Thanksgiving is not celebrated as we know it in the USA, and even if it was, there would be a lot of people absent from the table.  East Africa has a lot of poor and  few wealthy people, there is a small middle-class group here and there, but you have to do a lot of digging to find them. There is an economic Thanksgiving Table set in Africa; the problem is that only a few share in it.  Most simply never get to enjoy the fruit of their labor, their labor never ends and only a few benefit beyond mere existence.  The average person never gets to share in the bounty that is there.

Uganda became independent in 1962, the cry for freedom and self-determination rang out in the land.  The cry for freedom, for Uhuru (Swahili) could be heard throughout East Africa. The downtrodden, the poor after years of he heavy yoke of colonialism dreamed and hoped for a brighter future.  They dreamed of jobs that paid a livable wage, of an abundance of food, of land that had been taken to be restored, of good schooling for their children, of medical care, of opportunities at the table of freedom and economic opportunity.  The problem was that few of those with hopes and dreams were invited to the feast of economic thanksgiving in East Africa.  Only a select few with right connection, the right lineage were invited.  There was no thanksgiving with all the trimmings for the average person.  Hope and dreams gave way disappointment.  For most it was a return to life as usual in East Africa.  Back to their little Shambas farming to have enough to eat, or to the city where they would live in slums and take low paying jobs, they still hoped, they still dreamed of a better tomorrow, but in vain they waited for the invitation to partake at the table come.

Eating at the table in East Africa, means participating, reaping the benefits of power, getting to participate in the economic pie of a better tomorrow, of a better today.  For most in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, that day has never come.  Instead, it is corruption, bribes, thefts from government coffers of money meant for education, medical care, better roads, and better infrastructure.  The elite benefits, buying bigger vehicles for themselves as the potholes on the roads of East Africa increase in size, the rich fly to South Africa, England, Germany, the US for medical care while the poor pay for medicine with labels such as "not for resale" at corrupt pharmacies and medical clinics that steal the medicine from government hospitals.  The rich put their children into the finest schools that can cost thousands of dollars, while the poor go without food paying school fees, uniforms, books and other things for their children.

On any Sunday afternoon you can go to one of the shopping centers in places like Kampala and see families who are walking through the African malls, looking into the shop windows, admiring, wishing, hoping, dreaming, hoping for a brighter future, for a better day for their children who are amazed at the all the goods that they see on display.  You can go the Sheraton Hotel and see families who have scraped up a few shillings just to have a soda on the garden terrace, where you can get the finest food, but all they have money for is a soda, and that soda on the terrace gives them a feeling of what it would be like if one was invited to the table that has been set, but only a few are allowed to gather around it.

African fathers and mothers dream of the day when education will truly be free (no school fees of any kind such as building funds, dues etc, Kenya and Uganda technically offer free education, but there are all other kinds of other costs), when medicine is freely available and their children do not have to die due to some simple thing like diarrhea, malaria or the lack of clean water.  These well meaning parents dream of sending their children to the University, of becoming doctors, lawyers and craftsmen who can provide for their families, where their children will have the opportunity to  gather around the table of thanksgiving based not on who you know, or who you can bribe, but based on your abilities and talents that have been given by God and may the day come where the dreams of African fathers and mothers be fulfilled in the lives of their children where their dreams will become reality, where they have the opportunity to shape the Africa of today and tomorrow.

Africa is a wealthy continent, has an abundance of people, has resources that are unsurpassed, and most of all it is a place where people desire change, desire to be change agents in their communities.  People who contribute to a better Africa.  In Uganda large deposit of oil have been discovered, oil that will mean millions of dollars annually, but will it open up the table of economic opportunity for the average  Ugandan?

Africans dream of a better tomorrow, of sitting at the table of thanksgiving but it seems that there is a giant fence around the opportunities and the gatekeepers who are in control want to preserve their style of life and are unwilling to share it with all.

In Kampala, I met a man who had graduated from Makerere University with a degree in Ecology, but he was cleaning tables in a casino eking out meager living with feelings of deep resentment festering within.  He had paid the dues, studying hard, wanting to preserve Africa, making a difference by applying his skills in the field of ecology, but no one gave him the opportunity.  According to him, he was from the wrong tribe, the wrong family, he did not have the right connections, now he was clearing the dishes, removing the crumbs off of tables, while he and his family went without….sad, but reality for thousands like him…Africa dreams, hopes, looks in through the windows to where the party is, where the gathering is taking place, but there is no spirit of thanksgiving only feelings of rejection, of being tossed aside like Kleenex, while those with the right connections, the right family (often unqualified but rightly connected), the correct tribal tree, the correct gender in order to get the opportunity to join the feast of thanksgiving that people in the USA are preparing for.

As you in America gather around your Thanksgiving Table this coming week, as you say the Thanksgiving prayer as your family and friends have come together, may your mind and heart be on the one who gathered around him the least, the last and the lost, who came to set the captives free from inner and outer poverty, from despair and hopelessness and that God in his grace can restore the years that as scripture says, "the locust has eaten."

This Thanksgiving you might want to set an extra setting and empty chair at your table to remind you of those who are outside still waiting to gather at the table of Thanksgiving…from Kampala…jon

More Holiday Reflections African Style

 

Saint Nicholas Day:  Reflections from Africa on December 6.	Christmas African Style:  What Christmas is like in Uganda East Africa.  Different traditions, same spirit.	Christmas Thoughts from Africa: Reflections of Emmanuel - God with us	Advent with an African touch:  Reflections on Advent the Season of the open door.
Christmas 2009:  Children and their future in Africa and what it means to be a child here.	Christmas Party 2009 for Kids born into Slums:  A lovely celebration it was.	Christmas all year long:  The spirit of Christmas that goes beyond the Season.	No, they don't know it is Christmas - AIDS and the children of Africa
It is still not Christmas in Northern Uganda: a look back to Christmas of 2006 in Northern Uganda	It does not feel like Christmas-Joseph Kony-Christmas 2008: Thoughts on the LRA	Gathering at the Table: Thanksgiving Reflections on Africa, poverty and the plight of Africans.	Childhood lessons on New Year's Eve applied in Africa
Thanksgiving in Africa:  Thoughts and reflections on thanksgiving from Africa.	Easter in Africa - Reflections:  Reflections from Africa on the Easter Season.	Africa's Children-Section:The joys, the sorrows, life for children in Africa. Pictures & Stories	Life in East Africa-Section: Life in Africa - What is it really like?

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Gathering at the Table…Thoughts on Thanksgiving from Africa

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