The MUCH Anticipated Day

Election Day. It finally came. Ever since I arrived, it’s the main thing I had heard about. Campaign signs everywhere, Ugandans talking about their right to vote, campaign/parade rallies, prayers for peace and a non-violent process during bible study and mass, etc. Here is a short, unbiased, fact based overview of the political Uganda situation.

Yoweri Museveni came into power twenty five years ago by means of force. Since then, he has been elected as president every five years when elections are held.

Yeah, that all I can say without using opinions and biases.

Anyways, on Elections Day, the health center was closed in order to let the workers go vote. So I went to the printing press with Maria here at the Media Center. No work either. People were out voting instead of bringing things to be copied or printed. I asked Sherry who might have work for me and she responded with, “Well, the news room is quite busy today.” Ha! I bet! So she introduced me to the Chief News Editor, Ernest. He started me with answering the calls from the reporters, or “Communication Secretaries” as they are formally called, and recording their reports. I answer the phone, figure out who is calling, hit a couple of buttons, tell them to go ahead with their report, and record. Easy enough, right? Ha.

 The reason there have never been any lay missionaries in the news room is because so far, they have all mostly been from Germany. So on top of learning English, they have to learn to understand English with an African accent. I am the first lay missionary at Radio Pacis (besides Sherry) who has English as a first language. Even so, it is terribly hard for me to understand a recording of an African speaking English. They could very well be speaking a different language. When I am talking to them in person, I can see their mouth moving and use body language to determine what they are saying. I guess it is an ear training thing because, when I first arrived, it was hard for me to understand ANYONE with an African accent, whether they were standing right in front of me or not. I have gotten better at it (thank heavens!) and only rarely have to ask them to constantly repeat a word so I can catch it. However, over the phone is a whole different ball park. It’s was a lesson of humility when I knew this reporter was speaking English and then had to constantly keep asking one of the workers, “Uh, what is he saying?”

Well, there was much to report and I was kept busy from 9am to 2pm, got a thirty minute lunch break, worked till 6pm, got an hour dinner break, and worked till 10:30pm. It was great! Poor Ernest (chief news editor) had arrived at 4am, had shorter breaks than I did, and still didn’t have any intentions of leaving when I finally did. It was crazy. Every thirty minutes, they did an Election News Update in English. So we had to gather about five different reporter’s recordings, a journalist wrote a script to put them all together, broadcast it live, and repeated. Every thirty minutes. Then, at the end of the day, they picked out the top stories (most of them being how peaceful the elections were and that the only real problem was that some voter’s names weren’t in the voter’s register) and gave me about ten of them. Ernest then told me to write a script to put them together. Then after a quick crash course in how-to-write-like-a-news-journalist, I was on my own. It was a bit easier to determine what was being said in the recordings when I had the ability to pause, go back, and listen over and over again. I do think it became easier once my ear became accustomed to it.  It took me about an hour, but I did it. Ernest came in and edited for names and writing style but I was surprised when he kept most of my writings. I think we were both skeptical as to whether I could do it or not. I then hung around in the recording studios while Consolate, one of the new reporters, read the script and played the clips live on 94.5FM. It was the coolest thing ever.

Guess what else. Ernest asked me back! He said he thinks I might be able to help edit the grammar and English. Allow me to express two things to you:

1.       I am now wishing I had paid more attention in English class.

2.       I am excited because he ASKED me to be there. So far I had been asking to be allowed to come. To come to Radio Pacis, to work in the Health Center, to play with the kids at the school, etc. It is a good feeling. I know it sounds cliché, but it is almost a feeling of being useful instead of being in the way or doing something that someone else can always do without you. Of course, they have much more to teach me than I can ever offer to them. So humbling. Amazing. Thankfully they are being patient with me J

So it is now determined that I will be in the news room on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as well as Saturday mornings. Intimidating, but amazing!

One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.
-Washington Irving

P.S. Museveni won the election

P.P.S. Now the running joke is that I’m going to change my mind on the whole Pediatrician thing and become a radio news journalist. Haha, we shall see.

P.P.P.S. To learn more about everything that Radio Pacis does go to radiopacis.org