The Village

So I had my first trip out to "the village" last week. Usually when someone is not from Mbale originally (as is the case for most people), they have family and friends back in their home area that they visit as regularly as possible, which they call the village. Tiffany said when she first arrived in Uganda, she thought that the village was an actual single place that everyone seemed to come from! So when Natasha invited me to go visit her village, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. We arranged to meet in town and catch a matatu, but when she arrived, Natasha said it would be cheaper and easier to take a motorbike. I asked how far away the village was and she said it wasn’t far, so we got on the bike of a friend of hers. Well, I should know by now that when a Ugandan tells you something isn’t far away, that could mean that it’s anything between 2 minutes and two hours away. You can guess which one it was. So the two of us a sitting on the one bike, plus the driver, and off we go…and go….and go. Every time I thought “we must be almost there”, we’d take a turn and just keep on going. The worst part was, it had rained heavily the day before and once we got off the main road, the track was mud. Thick, slippery sludge. I think I prayed more in the one and three quarter hours that it took to get to the village than I have all year! The village is at the top of a mountain too, so we’re not only dealing with limited seating room and thick mud, but a decent incline too. We somehow managed to make it to the village in one piece, however, as we were coming slowly down the road to the house, the bike slipped on a thick patch of mud and tipped to side. Luckily, we were going slowly enough that we all put our left foot out and caught the bike before we came off or got squashed underneath. Unluckily though for me, as my left foot went down, my right ankle must have brushed the exhaust, which gets very hot after a long trip. It just looked like a scrape at the time, but the next day, a nice festering burn mark had appeared. Apologies to those who are squirmish, but a picture paints a thousand words (haha):

So we arrive at the house where Natasha grew up and I meet her mum, Sarah and one of her aunts. Then Violet, Natasha’s sister, comes running down the hill calling my name and dressed in traditional African attire. I have met Violet before and she is extremely lovely. She also lives in Namakwekwe (in Mbale) near Natasha, but she goes back home during school holidays. I didn’t realise she was going to be there, so it was a nice surprise! 

 Sarah made us African tea (milky and sweet) and we drank it with bread and freshly roasted and salted ground nuts (peanuts pretty much). We chatted for a bit and looked around the property and Natasha asked if it was okay for them to make us some matooke for lunch, which I replied was fine. Then Sarah asked if she should kill a chicken for me. Errrr. I told her I was more than happy without chicken for lunch, but then she asked if I knew how to hold a chicken if she gave me one for the ride home. I’m still not sure whether she meant a live one or not. Either way, I wasn’t about to add holding a dead/live chicken to the perils of getting back home again safely on a picky, so I told her if everyone would eat the chicken, she could kill it and we all eat it for lunch. So she killed the chicken. Luckily I didn’t see the act, but she did walk in at one point to say something to Natasha with the live chicken under one arm and a large knife in the other hand. I don’t think it saw it coming. 

While we were waiting for lunch to be ready, we wandered over to the local shops to get some more cooking oil and some tomatoes and said hello to all the locals who wanted to know who this funny white person was walking through their village. People have such an interest in other people here – I have been invited by total strangers to sit with them in their homes on numerous occasions and they’re always eager to learn where you come from and how long you’re in Uganda for and what you’re doing there. People here love to introduce themselves and tell you about their life or profession and are genuinely so happy to meet and greet you. I think I will really miss that when I return to western culture where people generally keep to themselves and don’t acknowledge the presence of strangers.

We headed back to the house and met some more of Natasha’s aunts along the way, took some photos and greeted some curious kids that I think were related to Natasha somehow. When lunch was ready we went inside and Sarah served us chicken stew and matooke, putting the ‘special’ plate in front of me. The special cut of chicken is reserved for special guests in Ugandan culture, which consists of the gizzard; a rubbery, brown coloured ring of grossness that comes from the chicken’s neck, which in this case was served with an unappetising chunk of chicken from the animals back. I had been warned about this tradition not long after arriving in Mbale, but had managed to avoid it thus far. Until now. When Sarah left the room, I switched plates so I had one with “normal” looking bits of meat in it. When Natasha saw I didn’t have the special plate, she insisted that we swap back but I told her that I was very thankful that they wanted to give me the ‘best’ part, but that I really didn’t want to eat it because it’s not the done thing in my culture. She eventually allowed me to keep my plate, but when Sarah came back in and noticed, she also tried to swap it back. I somehow managed to communicate that I didn’t want that plate without offending them, and so they eventually yielded….but then Sarah picks up the gizzard from the special plate and puts it on my plate saying ‘okay then, but at least you eat this part’. Kill me now. Thankfully, Natasha and Sarah both left the room and I was left alone with Ali, the picky driver, who was also eating with us. I managed to convince him to take the gizzard from me because I didn’t want to eat it, which he found quite amusing, but kindly let me dump it on his plate. I don’t think Natasha or Sarah noticed when they returned cause the room was a little dim and Ali and I were already half way through our meals. Saved! 

We decided to leave fairly soon after lunch, as the sky was indicating rain and that was the last thing we wanted on the way back down the mountain. We dropped in at the school where Natasha’s brother Victor lives/studies on our way back to Mbale and Violet joined us to that point. I had met Victor when I had dinner at Natasha’s a couple of months back and apparently he’s always asking about me and when I’m going to visit. So thankfully I did actually get to visit him before I left, otherwise I think he would have been extremely disappointed. We arrived at the school and greeted the teachers and I got wide eyed looks from most of the kids (but what’s new?). They told us Victor had something wrong with his feet and they were causing him pain, so we checked it out and the skin around the underside of his toes was all kinda skanky and hanging off. Natasha said it was some sort of parasite that causes it and Violet put a pin into part of his foot and something that looked like a white-ish worm or tube of puss came out – I’m not sure which one it was. Ick. Victor wasn’t his usual happy chatty self and the teachers didn’t seem too concerned about his condition. Natasha and Violet weren’t impressed with Victor’s feet, the lack of medical care and the general cleanliness of the school and clothes Victor was wearing. Most Ugandans take a lot of pride in their appearance and wearing clothes that are dirty or crumpled can be quite undignified for those who aren’t at the very bottom of the social ladder. So in front of a whole heap of his schoolmates (boys and girls), poor Victor was stripped naked and given a public bath by Violet with a whole lot of soap and scrubbing. She cleaned his feet and they put some sort of cream on them afterwards and I took some photos of Victor once he was clothed again! 

 The sky was darkening and suggesting rain, so I suggested we get going. We said goodbye to Victor and to Violet and we were on our picky again. Thankfully, the mud from the morning journey had mostly dried out with the days sunshine, so the trip back felt much safer and I could more fully appreciate the beauty of the scenery around me. We stopped at a few points to take photos and at one point, there was a family walking up the mountain, carrying a bunch of stuff – possibly all their possessions. I’m guessing they had been walking from the bottom which was a long way down, even on a motorbike. The woman asked Natasha for some of the water she was holding, so Natasha poured some into the woman’s container. There were kids walking with them and they didn’t even have water. Who knows how long they had been walking or how much longer they still had to go. 

 Life is just so rough for some people here. I used to find it a bit of a pain that I had to walk 15-20 minutes to the supermarket from my old place back in Melbourne, but seeing the distances that people walk here (often carrying bulky and/or heavy items) kind of puts that into perspective. People here are tough. I have realised here how much of my whinging about things in life is completely unnecessary. Not to say we don’t go through real troubles or encounter difficulties in First World nations, but much of what we complain about is laughable when you come to somewhere like Uganda and see how others live and what they have to face on a day to day basis. If nothing else, I will go home with a far greater appreciation of the “little” luxuries we so take for granted back home – running water, electricity (that doesn’t cut out every second night), drinkable tap water, free hospital care, affordable basic food items, access to credit, government benefits, roads free of massive potholes etc etc. I knew we had it good before I came to Africa, but after being here and hearing some people’s stories and seeing their homes, the way we live back home seems almost outrageous. 

I was chatting to one girl here about travelling and what countries I have been to. She asked why I went to each of these places, so I began to explain that some were jobs, some to study and some were just for a holiday. As I said this, she just kind of nodded and I realised how bizarre the idea of travelling just for fun must seem to someone who has never left their country of birth. I felt almost embarrassed to tell her that I had been to Thailand on a whim, just because I could. What I would have spent on that trip probably could have paid for her next three years of university tuition, her rent and all her living expenses to boot. Not to say that travelling for fun is evil and selfish, but those who can afford to do so are certainly in the world’s minority. Most Ugandans I have spoken to have never been outside Uganda and its neighbouring countries. 

I have been living with Leah for a week now and it’s been a lot of fun! Her place is small but pretty good in terms of housing here. She has running water and a western toilet and electricity (most of the time!). Her ‘house’ is a living room, bedroom and bathroom at the back of a compound with the main house at the front. I’ve been showering by tipping buckets of cold water on myself, but it’s actually better than at the house I was previously in, where I had to squat or sit in the bath to use the hand-held shower head! It uses a lot less water too. I will write some more about living in Maluku with Leah in my next post, along with my experiences of a village wedding with Rose and sleeping out in the middle of the African bush in a traditional banda! Stay tuned…

Lou :)