Life came over the wall

I was washing dishes this morning after a particularly nice breakfast at Gann and Dale's house. I lazily took note of the tan trousers hanging from the razor wire on the back wall of the house, and alerted my co-dishwasher Eric to their presence. "They look like mine," he noticed and Gann asked if he had hung any clothes on the line that could have been his--the answer was no.

Twenty minutes later Eric came running in from the "boys quarters" (a colonialism term referring to separate housing behind the main house for the "help;" Gann and Dale use these rooms for extra guests.) "They are my shorts, I was robbed!"

Apparently someone managed to enter his room as he was sleeping last night, took his backpack that had his phone and all his money, as well as an ATM card and other various "essentials" to life here. We kind of stared at each other in shock--never once had I ever felt unsafe in this house; although Dale and Gann are very careful with their locks on the gate and on the house, and although they have a large, ferocious dog, they do not keep a night guard. All the necessary activities after this sort of event were efficiently carried out by Dale and Eric (unfortunitely keeping us from palm sunday service at church): reports filed, local council and neighbors notified, police notified.

We catalogued the graces involved in this incident--his MP3 player was inside the main house(music, for us and our interminable rides on public transports and frequent bouts of stress or noise-related insomnia is essential to sanity), he did not wake up while the intruder was inside, and (later, we discovered) his backpack and everything but the phone and money was found on the other side of the wall, abandoned.

I have always felt an insular-kind of safety here, where we come for meetings or "retreating." Although right outside the wall is normal life as I know it in Kampala--yelling children, motorcycles, leering men, etc--inside the wall is quiet, peaceful, safe. I am in a womb, a cocoon, and am able to relax.

Is the wall around the house keeping out Uganda? Did the vulnerability I felt, thinking about the intruder relate to an unconcious perception of Uganda as "the other," "the enemy," or even just "the problem?"

Because MCC has such a strong emphasis on our ministry of presence and life-sharing in our communities, it occurs to me that this response might signal some spiritual pathology on my part. It is different from the vulnerability I felt last fall after almost being mugged--I was on the street, after dark, in a dangerous area--and someone chose to take advantage of my carelessness.

My question more relates to walls in general. Someone came over the wall. Moreover, they came over the wall, and into Eric's room. Why is it that I need this wall in order to relax, that here--away from Uganda, on a small bit of ground I realize I think of as 'apart' or 'separate'? Why is it that the incursion of my life outside--the life that is callous and antagonistic, into this place shakes me so much?

What is it about this world that I want to keep out with a wall? Do I have walls in my life at "home" (ie, US, Vermont, Norwich, Barn) outside of which I am pressing to keep "life" on some level--the life that has people who are willing to jump over razor wire to get money for their children's school fees, or food, or medical bills, or whatever? Why do I perceive the rest of my life as something to be overcome, or something that I have to fight against--and why is it disturbing that this life penetrated the cocoon of my rest?

Dear friends, I have no answers (nor am I sure that I have made any sense at all) but I put these questions into the great void of blog-dom, the large expanse of the internet conciousness hoping that they will return to me less than void.