Jambo from Uganda!

My first two weeks here have been incredible and I can’t fully express my gratitude to the Balazas for their hospitality, generosity and kindness. They have gone out of their way to ensure my comfort and safety and I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful Ugandan family.

My time here so far has mostly been an introduction to African life and culture, and I have been forced to rethink many previous (mis)conceptions about Africa. The Balaza’s spirit of sharing ismore endemic to Africa than the pestilence and violence that captures the Western imagination of the continent. To be sure, the negative exists, but the things that I now associate with Africa - or with Uganda at the very least - are friendly, sincere greetings; quick, enormous smiles; green and red splashed landscapes; and the slow, steady rhythm that underlies life here. My impressions of the people are admittedly shaped by those I am staying with and their circle of friends, but the vast majority of strangers I pass on the street share the same characteristics.

This brings up another outstanding impression thus far: my whiteness and the attention it attracts. I am a bit of a rock star, and no hat or sunglasses can cover up my entire body. The attention can be exhausting, but I am learning to live with it. Sometimes the adults pass without notice, other times they look at me with curiosity and a certain degree of bemusement. The kids are another story. They stare, giggle, shout, and occasionally ask me point blank for money. Sometimes people will initiate a greeting, other times I return their stares with a smile and say hello or good evening in English, Swahili or Luganda; it’s met almost exclusively with delight.

The house I am staying at is in Lugazi, which is about 30 kilometers from the capital, Kampala. It takes an hour to get to the capital though, since the single, narrow road that connects Kampala to the east and west is congested with boda bodas (motorcycle taxis), private drivers, minibuses, large buses, and trucks carrying cargo. There is a very limited functioning rail system in this landlocked country, so all people and virtually all goods travel along the same road in and out of the capital. Although the road is paved and is in decent condition, the congestion, lack of road rules, and dodging dogs, goats and pedestrians can make travel slow and at times a test of one’s patience. (As an interesting aside: there has been a rumor circulating for a while that the railway system will be reinstated; however, there is other gossip spreading that some in government have an interest in the cargo trucks that move the goods on the roadways.)

Lugazi town is surrounded by smaller villages and the Lugazi Sugar Company. I actually live on the company property just outside of the town, close enough though that I can hear the town’s horrendous PA system that blasts an instrumental version of the Titanic theme song for about a minute to notify people of the impending incomprehensibly stifled announcement; this happens at least twice daily. The locals appropriately call the sugar company a plantation. Unfortunately, Ugandans lack the capital to start businesses, so the company, like most in Uganda, is owned by foreigners. The Indians owners comprise the executive staff and live in the nice homes on the top of the hill, while the rest of the staff lives in simpler accommodations at the bottom. The surrounding hillsides are covered with sugar cane dotted with the seemingly self-made homes of the field workers. The field workers only make about a dollar a day for their hard labor, and it seems that many can’t afford to send their kids to school based on the walks I’ve taken along the roads that cut through the fields. Primary school in Uganda is free in theory, but there are fees associated with attendance, such as books and uniforms and those at or near the bottom of the economic ladder can’t always educate the entire family. As an example, one of the children in the foreground of this picture of my building came up to me to say hi after the shot. For a second I thought he was wearing a school uniform, and since school had already started that morning I asked him if he was on his way. He said, “No. School fees.” (i.e. - he couldn’t afford to go because of school fees.) I felt horrible as I put away my camera that could pay for his school fees for the rest of his life.

My walks along the plantation roads are a funny story unto themselves. I can’t blame the villagers that I pass for staring at me. There are no white people for miles and none visit for ages. Then. Suddenly. One appears in running shoes and a baseball cap out of the swirling sugar cane, strolling along the red rural roads. The poor children further back on the plantation are particularly intrigued by my presence, and I of theirs. They are not in school with the other children, wear well-worn dresses and street clothes instead of school uniforms, and usually look like they’ve been playing in mud most of the day. Sometime I hear them before I see them. Drifting over the hills comes the familiar, “Mzungu! Mzungu!” *White person! White person!* It should be noted that the children don’t always laugh when they spot me. I have made exactly three cry so far. Incredibly and hysterically, on separate occasions two of my neighbors’ toddlers started sobbing uncontrollably when they saw me. As their siblings dragged them closer, they actually put their little hands over their terrified, tearing eyes to put an end to the sight of me.

I have attended church three times in the past two weeks. That is precisely three times more than I have been in a dozen years. Needless to say, the Balaza’s, like many Africans, are very committed to their religious practice, and I have enjoyed meeting local leaders and getting to know the community better while socializing after mass. I met a few priests following last Tuesday’s 3 hour mass, and one of them greeted me as if he knew me. When he realized we hadn’t met before, he said that he must have confused me with the OTHER Mzungu named Natalie. I had to stop myself from laughing at him. There are better odds of me medaling in table tennis than there being another white Natalie in the Lugazi area. I also had the opportunity to meet a woman who is the program coordinator for a project that conducts educational seminars on a variety of topics in the outlying villages. I am hoping to work with her or at least accompany her on some of these trips. I had had in mind to become quickly become involved in a local project, but the pace over here S-L-O-W, and I am just learning to go along with it.

I’ve visited Kampala a few times. It moves faster and is less friendly than the villages that are becoming my home. It is also extremely congested and agonizing to navigate since urban planning is nonexistent. Last Sunday I bought some African dresses at a Kampala store, and while they are beautiful and I am grateful to look more African (Seriously. Who am I kidding?), the outing was literally painful. There are laws against vehicle pollution, but like many in the books, it isn’t enforced. Exhaust seems to emanate from every vehicle, and I still felt ill the following day from sitting in traffic and the city centre for hours breathing in the black air and churning dust. I told Sumete, the family’s driver, that I wasn’t accustomed to the exhaust and that my head, chest and eyes still hurt the following day and he just laughed at me. I guess I can’t blame him. I was being a bit of an American baby. The previous Sunday though the family took me to a cultural center in Kampala that featured native dancers and musicians, and I LOVED it! The photographs I took can’t fully capture the rhythm and movement of these incredible artists.

I have also visited a few nurseries around Lugazi that are for profit, but sell many of their plants to non-profits, which in turn give them to the local sustenance farmers. A couple of the nurseries supply “improved” plants. These are created by grafting the local version of a plant, such as a mango, with a foreign one to create a hybrid that is naturally resistant to local disease, but provides larger fruit than the native versions. In the little time I have been here, it is easy to see how sturdy and bountiful crops are integral to survival. It is also clear how changing weather patterns could directly and devastatingly affect sustenance farmers. Having heard that global warming most hurts those in developing countries, I am now witnessing it. I have been surprised at the lack of rain– only three downfalls so far– and we are in the rainy season. Margaret, the mother, nodded her head in agreement with my observation and confirmed that the weather had become “unpredictable” in recent years.

Another recent outing involved accompanying one of the family’s sons, Timo, who is a civil engineer, on a work trip to another large city, Jinja, to review the development of a couple of educational buildings. Like in the US, staying on top of the contractors is necessary for the completion of quality work, especially here where shoddy construction has lead to recent building collapses (not to worry mom and dad, I believe it is limited to office buildings and not residential and retail so much). I spoke with the principle of the vocational training school we visited, which has about 400 students and offers certification courses lasting three months to a couple of years. He said the student population is mostly in their early to mid-twenties and couldn’t afford to go on to higher education. Of interest to me though was the 54-year-old student he mentioned who wanted to develop her baking skills to earn an income after raising her children and not having much of an education previously. He also explained that the building being erected was necessary since their cooking classes were currently interrupted by the adjacent hotel, with which they shared a kitchen. I recall him saying that it didn’t help for the students to learn to make only half an omelet; yet another moment where I stop and appreciate the endless resources in America.

This Saturday I went to visit other family members in a village about 40 minutes away, which is even more rural than Lugazi. The Balazas also own some land nearby and showed me their crops and we discussed some ideas for developing the land for the community – possibly a primary school or vocational center. Easter Sunday involved mass, a picnic in the nearby Mabira Forrest Reserve (picture left), and another journey to Kampala to see Timo’s sick daughter. Unfortunately many hospitals were closed for the long holiday weekend and Timo could not see his regular physician on Friday when his daughter fell ill. Instead, he had to go to clinic where apparently people wear white coats as if they were doctors, but only have cursory medical training and view medical practice as a business rather than a service. They wouldn’t show Timo the lab results, but insisted the little girl had complicated malaria (extreme case) and charged them for the expensive and potentially toxic medication and two days hospital stay. The family wasn’t convinced the child was correctly diagnosed and suspected that the staff was cheating them, which unfortunately happens often here. Monday they learned that their suspicions were correct when the family doctor told them she only had a very mild case of malaria, and it was a terrible infection that was making her so ill. The drug therapy was altered and the family is now assured, but I am so furious that people lie and steal at all, much less when it has to do with the health of a small child. But what can one do here? Although systemic problems exist in American relating to medical insurance and lawsuit abuse, at least we don’t have clinics and hospitals filled with incompetent practitioners who lie to their vulnerable patients for self gain; again, a moment when I am grateful.

Other things? Hmmm… my new home has electricity, running water (most of the time) and a television – the latter providing a great deal of insight into African culture. I have had the opportunity to not only watch the local news, but local weddings, dubbed Telenovlla into English, dubbed American movies into Lugandan (the English parts are not entirely removed, and the family tells me that the interpreters don’t always know what is being said, so they just make up some of the lines), and, my personal favorite, Nigerian movies. I can’t tell you what you are missing if you haven’t seen a Nigerian movie. They are like American soap operas meet college film-making 101 made by and for Africans with witchcraft. Apparently, a great number of Nigerians believe in witchcraft – more so than Ugandans. My favorite film so far involved a woman being cursed to miscarry by her husband’s family who didn’t like her. Her husband then thought his wife was a witch sacrificing her own unborn children, so he left her. But then the woman who cursed the wife started having miscarriages because she was so wicked; however, the evil, former in-law mistakenly thought it was the wife putting a curse on her in retaliation, and went to the wife’s house to confront her and threw a talisman at her feet. An argument ensued. I’ll stop there to prevent spoiling it if you happen upon this fascinating piece of cinema.

That’s it so far. Here is a link to my photos on flickr. I also have my Dubai pictures up too.