I see in my mind the long, winding path the bus took two days ago, through the districts of Gulu, Oyam, Apac, Masindi; over the briefly gorgeous Karuma Falls where baboons stroll along the roadside; through Nakasongola, Luwero, and Wakiso to Kampala, and eventually to Jinja. A sloping journey south: the beginning of my solitary exodus from this country. My time here is ever-flowing, bringing me closer to the moment where all of my experiences will be concentrated into everything I am allowed to carry with me on my back and in my mind and heart. An entire culture, the vibrant worlds of Acholiland and Jinja, the friendships I have made and wisdom I have learned, desperately captured in words and pictures and small souvenirs to convince myself that I don’t really have to leave this place; I can take Uganda with me. Is it possible? I will try with all my might.
How did it happen, that I have fallen in love and admiration and interest with this country and find it so hard to think about leaving? Which came first, the welcoming openness of the people here, or my eager openness to learn? Which was it that catalyzed this exchange of ourselves, me in my ignorance and hopeful friendliness, they in their appreciation and bemused patience? It does not matter now. There still and will always be misunderstandings, but through and above and underneath our differences, there is a deep affection blending indiscernibly at times into love.
Gulu was, once again, a profound demonstration of the willingness of Ugandans to accept my blundering attempts to experience and understand their world. I interviewed the agronomist at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization office and the Archbishop of the Gulu Diocese (a prominent local leader) about the challenges facing post-conflict agriculture in the region, and they responded with enthusiasm, though I had nothing to offer them but my sincere interest and curiosity. I showed up to the meeting of a farmers’ group that works with the organization Villages of Hope, whom my Acholi friend Tony helps to run. I hoped to interview them about their experiences with farming, IDP camps, and returning to their lives in their villages, and I ended up with answers, maps of gardens, and offers for me to spend the night and cook food with them. They want me to call the chairperson of the group on his cell phone – by the way, nearly every Ugandan, regardless of economic status, has a cell phone – when I have successfully completed my research and studies. I expressed a desire to have the experience of killing and cooking a chicken and preparing a traditional Ugandan meal; Tony helped me buy a chicken, and a friend of his that I met that day spent her evening teaching me how to do just that. She and her children didn’t even share the meal of chicken, posho, and rice with me, but left me to eat it with Tony and his friend.
Tony embodies this welcoming spirit, which is a combination of eagerness to help me experience the ways of life here and deep appreciation that I am interested in doing so, in learning what it is that forms the foundation of each person’s day. The last time I visited Gulu, he introduced me to women in the village of Lurutu, who smilingly showed me how to grind flour, carry water on my head with a cushion of grass, and harvest and peel cassava, a potato-like root. This time, not only did he set up the group interviews with local farmers, but he also brought me to see several farms including his own, where we planted papaya and coffee seedlings. (In doing so, he fulfilled another of my dreams: we rented motorcycles and drove them ourselves, on a dirt road under a deep blue sky, out into the bush to his farm.) He enabled me to visit villages I would have had no access to on my own, and asked for no compensation other than my learning and enjoyment. If this helpfulness is the response I get for showing genuine interest and a simple desire to immerse myself in the culture around me, I am overwhelmed. I only hope that I can do justice to this generosity by telling the stories of these people, my acquaintances and friends, and using the knowledge they have shared with me to somehow help them to rebuild their lives.
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