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Humility Provides the Ground for Empathy to Grow
So please, be curious
Living in Uganda for a time, the daily rhythms of life often felt slowed — sun-worn men and women waved happily from the shade of their palm groves as children walked in red-checkered uniforms to school. I would usually journey by foot in the mornings to the medical clinic where I worked—in a light still dim, as the sun rose softly to cast shadows through the maize and trees of jackfruit that embraced the rolling mountainside.
Boda boda motorcycle drivers would stop in the village to fuel their bikes with petrol-filled Coca Cola bottles, and on Mondays, farmers buzzed about, like bees proud of the pollen they had stolen along with the first kiss from bergamot or rose, to eventually settle at roadside stands where they would spend the day selling fruit, chapati, or coffee beans.
Over time, I grew used to the colloquial Lugisu greetings — “Mulembe” [hello] and “Oryena?” [how are you?], most commonly — and the early sounds of dawn prayer at a nearby mosque; I even felt comfortable with the curiosity of the barefooted children who would walk alongside me down the path of red earth that was always rich with the heavy dew of rain by late afternoon.
The encounters I struggled most to reconcile, were those that boldly emphasized our differences. I had…
