“I’m not going to lie: five years back in New Zealand has me yearning for the communal way of life in Africa.

Here, post-partum depression is on the rise.

Mothers are more isolated than ever, often struggling in silence, far away from family, feeling the pressure to return to work just six months after giving birth to keep up with the mortgage.

We’re in a culture that prides itself on independence and self-sufficiency.

Asking for help can feel like failure. In Africa, it’s the opposite.

The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” isn’t just a cliché — it’s a daily reality.

When a mother gives birth, she’s surrounded for months by family and helpers so she can rest and bond with her baby. It’s normal to have people in your home helping out.

Often a female family member will move in to help manage the household. This lets the mother return to work, build a business, or simply heal.

It’s seen as an honourable role — to help. There’s companionship. There’s dignity in being part of someone else’s family. Independence is not the end goal. Community is.”

This powerful description of where we work, Greater Northern Uganda, including the title, we have borrowed from Ms. Pamela Muwanguzi, extracted from her “The Gift of Perspective: 6 years of cross-cultural marriage.”

We have shared Pamela’s take on our homeland in response to today’s daily prompt “describe your life in an alternate universe,” in order to remind ourselves of the good we already have in our current reality.

Good that we often overlook in the name of “modernization,” often defined as be like “New Zealand” or emulate the Caucasian central-logic of what modern is. Less talked about are the negative effects of ‘modernization’ in erasing cultures, ethnocide.

And so, in our life in an alternate universe, we live in a community where “community is the end goal.” In which we truly care for each other and pro-actively participate in that which fosters and nurtures community.