Come Walk With Me

Many evenings at dusk I walk or jog through the rusty trails that cut through the sugar cane on the hillsides surrounding my African home. I step out the door to maybe cows, chickens or small families of goats, four-legged babies hopping around their pregnant mother’s bulging sides, and always, inevitably, there are many, many Ugandan children. There is a school immediately to my building’s left, another a little further past, and three on the paved street to our right, some children still walk in their uniforms, others changed into dirty clothes, most fetching water from nearby wells and tanks.

I am constantly greeted…

Hi mzungu! Good evening mzungu! Bye-bye mzungu! How are you mzungu!

The toddler in the home across the grass clearing still cries uncontrollably when she sees me; it’s been over three months and still not accustomed to my pallor. Her older siblings laugh when I pass and she runs for them, arms spread out, tears streaming down her face, wanting protection from the white monster.

I cross the road that to the right leads to town and to the left climbs further into the sugar company’s property; I start off on the dirt path that descends into the cane crawling past the factory, the pungent smell from the distillery wafting over the walls of willowy green to my sides; children staring at me with jugs, or jercans, of water on their heads, or clutched in their hands, men passing on bicycles and boda bodas, occasionally a storm of dust from a passing factory truck, loading or unloading a sea of product.

The further into the fields, the fewer the prying eyes, a welcomed retreat.

I walk up and down slopes, past patches of sugar already cut and burned, through a valley intersected by a stream of dirty irrigation, by the greenhouse of tiny, bright roses. A few kilometers pass and I am back on the main road connecting the plantation’s back fields and homes to the rest of Lugazi, this portion of the road not paved, winding up a hill where the tank rests with calm water beckoning fetching children, and a paltry fence encircles mulling cows, then down the hill along the golf course by the strong, colorful homes of the management staff decorated by thick walls, security guards and heaping gardens. And still children, children all around.

Sometimes they run up to me, and stop when they are close, I put my hand out to welcome them, they grab it elated, then more come, a swarm of little faces smiling and arms reaching out to grab me, wiping at my forearms and legs to see maybe if the color changed, or if it felt different, maybe softer or slimy or rougher, who knows, sometimes they lift up the back of my shirt and point; tatooie. Sometimes they grab my hands and run with me, both arms occupied, I jog awkwardly and they chant and cheer.

They stop following when the road descends sharply and is again paved; yellow light flooding between the clouds above the hills to the right, the only spot to witness an unobstructed Ugandan sunset, the setting sun penetrating the gathering evening mist, cascading the greenery in an enigmatic atmosphere that speaks to me, Africa.

I wind down and around the bend, past the central gated entrance to the golf course and back onto the central company property with staff and passersby waving and staring at me; night closing in, I pass into my little neighborhood, New Colony, and say sura burungi, to the children as they play on the neat clearing in the fading light.