Here's a (small) taste of Uganda.

I haven't figured out how to post links on the side of my blog, so this'll have to do for now. These are a few pictures I was able to upload from my time here so far. I hope you enjoy them!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2231572&id=6715376&l=9292f836df

My Acholi name is Lamaro.

It means "lovely person," and was given to me by a woman in the village of Lurutu in Gulu district. I ground millet and cassava flour with her and watched with a disbelieving ache in my heart as she filled jerrycans with milky water from her kulu, her well. It was a shallow hole in the ground with bugs floating around the edges.

I return to Jinja and hear stories of alcoholism and child beatings. I don't go out alone at night for fear of thieves and try not to get overcharged at the market for my eggplant. The women I visit cannot afford to pay their children's school fees, yet they hurry to serve me heaping portions of the little food they have. 

This love, this "hope that doesn't make sense;" is it here, in this place of poverty and all-too-real thirst for money? I naively expected to come here and be enlightened, to find that the people here were somehow better than I was, that poverty had given them the secret to living a content and happy life with few material possessions. What I have found is that they are human. They, too, have wants and needs and flaws and beautiful strength.

Perhaps I am here not to be enlightened by the absence of flaws, by the idea that owning less means you crave for less. Neither am I here to have my ideology crushed by the obvious existence of these flaws, the same human failures I thought I would leave behind in my luxurious, opulent America. I am beginning to think that I am here to recognize the flaws, struggle with them, and search for the love and hope that I believe still exists in such a reality. 

The sun always flirts with the clouds in Gulu.

There is so much for me to learn here! I am safe. We arrived in Gulu to find not the sketchy, war-torn area we had been warned about, but an energetic, purposeful town of strong people and NGO's around every corner. The food is great and the people are friendly. I'm taking lots of notes, learning as much Acholi as I can, and meeting people who can take me to villages and IDP camps.

My time online is limited, so that's all for now. More later!

The mangos here are incredible.

Morning:

I am going to have coffee, a mango, and a fried egg for breakfast. I would usually be concerned about that small amount of food carrying me through to lunch, but I’m not worried. Today we are going to visit at least three different women in the Babu area of the village outside of town. Babu is a small place, and everyone seems to know one another. More importantly, everyone who lives there and belongs to Suubi seems to know when we are coming to visit. The last time we visited, we intended to see as many women as we could. The result was a large amount of time spent in two women’s huts, eating two very large lunches within an hour or so of each other. The food was delicious: first sweet African tea with muffins, followed by the best rice and beans I’ve ever had; then we were served posho (a mashed-potato-like substance made from corn flour), cooked cabbage and greens, and fried eggs. Each dinner plate was heaped to the brim, and not finishing the meal is considered an affront to the cook. We asked the women about this while struggling to tuck away the posho, greens, and eggs, eaten traditionally without silverware by making a scoop out of posho to put the rest of the food in. The cook was Getu – short for Gertrude – an affectionate older woman with five children in school and a face that lights up with her smile. She doesn’t speak a lot of English, but her daughter Jennifer does, and she does most of the explaining. Agnes is also there; we ate our first lunch at her place while she and Getu talked with us, and it is amazing that both of these women know how much we have eaten and still expect us to eat more. The last woman in the small room is Jaclyn, who also lives in Babu and speaks English well. My friend Tina is feeling especially full. After a prayer and a few bites, she begins to plead satiation to the village women, who laugh and smile, not totally believing that Westerners can eat so little. Jennifer and Jaclyn explain the reason behind such generous and overwhelming offerings of food: it is considered a great honor for visitors to come to a home, and a disgrace if the visitors leave without taking something with them, often in the form of food they have shared with their host. Tina looks a little more relieved as Jaclyn continues to say that even if the guest dips their fingers into the food and takes a few bites, it shows that they are honoring the hospitality prepared for them; there is no need to eat all of the food that is served. Still, the women in the room chuckle when Tina says she must stop eating before her stomach pains her, and I too ask for understanding as the remaining half of my meal defeats me.

 

Evening:

Despite faint hunger rumblings around 11 in the morning, my light breakfast paid off: I ended up having three lunches. It began at Grace’s, where we were served sugary African tea with roasted corn on the cob while Grace, Agnes, Tina and I threaded beads into necklaces on mats outside. The picnic vibe became uniquely Ugandan as chickens pecked around the clay yard, women braided hair and washed doorways, and shy kids gnawed on sugarcane cut from the garden next to us. I was on my third necklace and second cup of tea when Grace disappeared for a bit, only to reappear with three pots and a number of bowls and utensils. A meal never begins without washing your hands and praying. Tina and I pour water from a cup onto each other’s hands, until we are dismayed as Grace tells us that in her culture, a friendship ends if the friends wash each other’s hands. The women burst into laughing at our shocked faces, then we giggle as Grace assures us that she was only joking. Our friendship intact, Tina prays for our food and we begin. Heaps of rice are topped with beans in their sauce, salty steamed greens, and chopped eggplant. As soon as our bowls show signs of being close to empty, Grace spoons another generous serving to fill them up despite our smiling protests. As we try new ways of expressing that we would soon be full to bursting, Grace says, “An amari…we love each other, so we eat together.” If a woman tells you that she loves you and sees eating together as a sign of that love, can you refuse your third huge spoonful of rice and beans?

Bosco – her name is Jennifer, but she goes by her husband’s name – insisted on us visiting her as planned, even though she and her son have the flu. I offered to come another day, but her face deflated at the suggestion. Grace explained that if someone is sick and no one comes to visit, they think that their friends are afraid of them and that they will die. If friends and family visit a sick person, they believe they will get well. Of course, as soon as we were done making the necklaces, we walked between huts and under clotheslines to Bosco, who was waiting for us with a grin and a runny-nosed toddler in her arms. She welcomed us into her hut, where a faded curtain hung from the ceiling, separating the living room where we sat from what is probably the bedroom. I perched politely on the doily-covered wooden couch and greeted Bosco and her children. With a sinking feeling in my already heavy stomach, I watched Bosco’s slim form slip outside. Hoping that she wasn’t cooking anything for us, Tina and I continued to chat with Agnes and Grace, who had escorted us, and Bosco’s shy daughters. Bosco returned and listened with great interest as Agnes told her of my trip to Gulu on Sunday. Agnes’s home village is 15 miles outside of Gulu, and Bosco’s village is only three miles from the town proper. She is the youngest of 11 siblings and thus was most in danger when the rebels began attacking villages and abducting children in the 1980’s and 90’s. She was sent to live in safety with her uncle in Jinja and got married to someone who is also from Gulu. The rest of her family is still in her village, and her face was wistfully bright when she spoke of visiting them once a year and perhaps moving back there with her husband and children one day, if they can get enough money. Though my heart and mind were caught up in her story, my stomach still had the audacity to groan as she smilingly initiated handwashing before lifting the lids of a huge pot of rice and a smaller pot of beef and broth. Tina and I protested, though we knew it was futile, and eventually we collapsed into laughter as the same humongous portions were lovingly dished out to us. The women looked confused, but joined in once we tried to explain how impossible it would be for us to eat even more food. They didn’t believe us, and Tina let out a sigh of exasperation that only made the two of us crack up again while we attempted to do justice to our host’s cooking. If there were a medal of honor for bravery in eating, Tina and I both deserve it because of that meal. By the time her bowl was clean, Tina was in tears of both laughter and discomfort from trying to convince the good ladies she was full and continuing to eat anyway.

As for me, my day was not yet over. Tina made her exit because of an appointment in town, but I still had a date to keep with Joyce, another of the Suubi ladies in Babu. With handshakes all around, I thanked Bosco several times for her hospitality and cooking, then Grace and Agnes escorted me to Joyce’s place. We were welcomed in to sit on another wooden couch in another small room with a cement floor and Western newspapers plastered on the walls. Joyce’s face dimpled into a smile as she asked me how I was doing and proceeded to dress her youngest child while chatting with my escorts. I can only understand very simple phrases in their language, so I sat back and smiled at Joyce’s older daughter, who was wearing an emerald green Sunday dress and moisturizing with petroleum jelly after her bath. I could pick up on Joyce being told about the happenings of the day, like the news of my trip to Gulu and Tina’s struggle to finish her rice and beef. I was offered a chunk of unripe mango, which was surprisingly delicious when I dipped it in salt as the rest of the group was doing, and gnawed on it slowly as the conversation swirled in front of me. Eventually, another of Joyce’s daughters returned with a glass-bottled Coke, which was set down in front of me, and two hard-boiled eggs, one of which Grace started shelling immediately. The soda was a familiar sight, as Fanta, Mirinda, Coke, and Sprite are popular beverages to offer guests. I learned that while Joyce easily opened the bottle with her teeth, I would break mine trying to do so unless I ate a lot of millet to make them stronger. Joyce murmured a prayer for the food. I clung to the foolish and stubborn hope that Grace would eat one hard-boiled egg, and I the other. My stomach had come through magnificently for me today, but I didn’t want to push my luck. I sipped the Coke slowly, agreeing with the women that the carbonation would help with digestion and trying not to prove it by belching in front of them. If my stomach could’ve sunk lower than it already was with so much food, it would have as I asked the dreaded question, “Is this all for me?” The women had a good-natured chuckle as Joyce assured me that of course it was! I did my best to return the laughter, which resulted in a nervous but optimistic smile. Dipping the first of the eggs in salt, I thanked my stomach and began. The women continued to talk, and I continued to eat, taking a swig of Coke at key intervals. Eventually and inevitably, the last bit of egg was gone and the soda swallowed. I was done eating for the day, maybe for the week. But as Grace and Agnes waved goodbye and Joyce walked with me to the road, I found myself feeling incredibly grateful to these Ugandan mothers, who have so little and yet give so much to a near-stranger like me. As I walked – and surreptitiously belched – my way home, Grace’s words of an amari, I love you, drifted into my mind and a warm feeling grew in my belly. Of course, that also could have been my digestive system overheating.

 

Before you go, I have a few IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS to share:

I accidentally gave everyone the wrong mailing address. The correct address is

P.O. Box 1905

Jinja, Uganda

East Africa

Don’t fret if you’ve already sent something. I talked to the post office and they’re going to “forward” anything they get with the old address to the P.O. Box (I hope).

Secondly, I am leaving with Jess, one of the volunteers, for a trip up to northern Uganda on Sunday. We are going to Gulu first, to check out some of the great non-profits hard at work there. We also hope to visit Invisible Children and perhaps a school and an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp or two. Then we head to Lira, a smaller town just southeast of the larger city of Gulu. My church in Santa Cruz is partnered with an orphanage in Lira called Otino Waa (“Our Children”), and I hope to be able to give an update on how things are going there. Several of the Suubi women I have met are from villages near either Gulu or Lira, so it would be amazing to visit those places and see both how the violence has affected them and how the people and land are recovering. The trip will last one to two weeks, depending on how everything goes, and I will be sure to write about it when I get back. Northern Uganda is much, much safer than in past years, but I would still appreciate your thoughts and prayers as we make this journey. So long for now!

Contrary to popular belief, roosters crow all day long.

I wake up to roosters crowing. Soon, the primary school across the street clangs its bells for the beginning of the day, shaking the last shreds of sleep from my head. Last night a spectacular thunderstorm flashed in the distance, though no rain came with it. Although I am not used to thunderstorms this big, “primary” rather than elementary schools, and roosters in such close proximity to my bedroom, life here is not the strange and exotic existence I anticipated. I still sleep in a bed, though a blue mosquito net covers it. (I have yet to see more than five mosquitoes here, but the threat of malaria keeps me cautious.) I still live in a house, though there is a brick wall with a tall gate, a night guard, and metal bars on the windows shaped like octagons in an attempt to be aesthetically pleasing. Of course I eat, but the food comes from a daily market where knowing the prices is crucial to bargaining for something fair, because most people are sure to try to rip off a mzungu. (Mzungu is the word for “white person,” and it is often called by adults looking to profit from your perceived wealth and small children excited and in awe of your pale complexion.) Sometimes the food I eat is served in a ridiculously large portion – usually of rice and beans, though a corn meal paste called posho can replace the rice – by a village woman who cooks it over a charcoal fire and smiles encouragingly across the table in her tiny hut while I struggle to eat it all. (I never imagined that I would come to Uganda and have too much food to eat, but it is an honor to offer guests food if you are able to. What I didn’t realize is that I am served twice as much food as I can usually eat in one sitting, and the cook will take offense if you do not clean your plate. The other volunteers tell me the only way to politely refuse to finish eating is to say you are so satisfied that your stomach is paining you.) 

Even the people here are the same. Yes, they have darker skin and live without the comforts and conveniences of refrigeration, computers, and real houses. The women cook over charcoal and store their water in pots and plastic jerrycans. Their clothes are handwashed and hung on a line a few feet from the small garden plot that survives on manual labor. Yet they make jokes about their children’s sweethearts, do favors for each other, share gossip, and proudly talk about the work their husbands do. Their homes, though spare, are still tastefully arranged and decorated to welcome guests with incredible hospitality. They worry about money and school fees and food, just as many people in America do.

These differences and similarities lie at the heart of what I have yet to understand. In the meantime, there are huge meals, beautiful clouds, and ordinary people living their lives in the best ways they can.