Africa

I’m back in my hotel room in Kampala with plenty of time to think about my experience here in Uganda: to think about what I’ve learned and seen, to try to figure out what all of this means for me moving forward.  But it’s a difficult thing to mentally condense and explain.  Uganda, and probably most of Africa, is the kind of place that evokes a lot of emotions and thoughts.   It’s rough and raw and yet full of potential.  It’s a place of contrasts- of clashing colors, beauty and dirt, happiness and pain, chaos and calm.  Mobile phones and technologies are juxtaposed on a background of huts and shacks lacking running water or electricity.  And at any point you might see someone who looks like they stepped out of the 80’s, 90’s, or Little House on the Prairie.  It’s like having a snapshot of a developing America, only entirely different because of the influence of countries like the US.  When I see what they’re reaching for, some part of me wants to shout “Don’t follow us Africa!  We’re not that cool!  You don’t want our pollution and dependency on oil and expanding waistlines.  Don’t eat our white bread, eat insects and silver fish and paw-paws. Develop, but find your own path- a better one.”    

Things don’t always, or really ever, go perfectly smoothly in rural Uganda.  It’s a place where you must go with the flow or you’ll drive yourself crazy.  It asks a lot of you, and it consistently tests the limits of your comfort zone and patience.  You make the conscious choice to learn and adapt and laugh when things go wrong or be miserable.  And those things force you to grow, or at least they did for me.  I think it taught me to live with a little more flexibility and calmness, celebrating the everyday simple, happy, funny things that I usually miss in my busy life.  

In a few days I’ll go back to warm showers and consistent electricity, a clean apartment with a closet full of clothes, and a varied diet.  At the very least that contrast makes me feel thankful, and at the most, guilty.  But I think the guilt would only come were I not terms with the privileged nature of my life in comparison with the rest of the world.  Fact- I have many things that billions of people do not.  And that sucks.  But feeling guilty about it and giving away all my clothes to goodwill is not going to change it one bit.  The differences between my life and my friend Martha’s, for example, were at times quite stark, but most of the time it felt like we were just people, and we were mostly the same.  We share the same cares and emotions and stories, just on a different stage with different props, settings, and conflicts.  And there are things that she has that I don’t.  By saying this, I’m not trying to make light of the fact that there is a lot of work to be done in Africa- there are people dying of hunger and AIDS and other illnesses, people who lack basic rights, and a lot of infrastructure and business to be built.  I think I’m just trying to say that they aren’t people to be pitied.  They’re bright people who, like us, work and live in the only way they understand.  They could use our love and knowledge and technology and sometimes our money, but they don’t need our pity.  It helps no one.

    

The Africa I saw is a captivating place, one that I’m sure will be hard to forget.  It gets under your skin, and it draws you in despite the hardships- like a friend that you love but has some big issues to work through.  This friend is also a pretty blunt friend who stares you in the face and says “Yeah?  I’ve got a few problems.  So what are you going to do about it?”  I think the best kinds of experiences (or friends) are the ones that challenge you- they invite you to stretch and learn and give.  And Africa is nothing if not a challenge.    

  

Baboons, Boxes, and Boda-Bodas

Though wild animals are hard to come by in the part of Uganda I traveled to, I felt that I couldn’t leave without seeing something.  So on my first weekend a little carload including Hussein, Agnes, Namukose, the girl from the copy shop, and myself set off for a forest reserve about 20 km from Bugiri.  Mission: to find the baboons.  It really isn’t hard because they sit by the side of the road and wait for passersby to throw bananas, sweet potato, cassava, or whatever to them.  They come right up to the car and kind stand there hesitantly waiting for you to throw them something.  Agnes wouldn’t let me get out of the car because she was afraid I would get attacked or taken or something, so I just threw bananas and took pictures. 

We also found some cute little monkeys by the forest.  I didn’t realize that monkeys are so greedy, but the male monkey stole the bananas we threw every time.  We tried to throw them to the females who would creep out of the bushes, but it never worked.  I’ll refrain from making a comment on how this relates to the natures of human males…

The greedy male is there in front.  And we didn't throw that water bottle, just to clarify.

On the way back we stopped for fresh roasted field corn from one of the roadside stands.

The next weekend Agnes and I planned a trip to Jinja to go shopping and see the source of the Nile.  But first, we went with Namukose to visit a school for AIDS orphans and children of single mothers, which also housed a training school for those mothers.  The mothers learn to sew on old Singer sewing machines with the goal of getting a certificate and starting their own tailoring shops.  While we were there, they had a program to hand out Christmas boxes shipped from America through Samaritan’s Purse to the children.  At least, they were supposed to be Christmas boxes, but they didn’t get there until April.  I’ve packed similar boxes myself before, so it was great and a little surreal to see these children actually opening them.  I found out that though the boxes are free and the shipping is paid for by the organization that sends them, the fees for further shipping and storage once they get here can be at least 50,000 shillings for one carton of about 20 boxes.  It’s only about $17 for us, but it’s a lot of money for them.  Consequently, they could only afford 1 carton, and not all of the children were able to receive one.  The director assured us that the children would share, but it was still a little sad.  When they opened the boxes there was such joy and amazement over little things like stickers and markers.  It also suddenly became clear what kinds of things are probably better to send and which things aren’t… like socks.  Not very practical when you don’t have shoes. 

Those children that received boxes.

The children gathered around some of the sewing trainees.

We had to take “public transportation” to the school, and while we were walking to the taxi stand a few of the men who are always hanging out in front of shops yelled something to us, and Agnes yelled something sassily back.  When I asked (as I always have to) what was said, Agnes said that they had said they wanted to be my friend, and Agnes replied that to be my friend they must give her cows.  10 Friesian cows, to be exact, which I’m told are pretty valuable.  Mom and dad, now you know what I’m worth. 

It’s funny, of course, but at the same time not so funny.  Marriages here begin when a boy decides he wants a girl, the girl agrees, and he offers her family a dowry of cows or goats, maybe rice and other pricey foods, chickens, or money.  A dowry doesn’t seem like a big deal, but to me it’s one sign of a culture that doesn’t value women as much as men- as though they’re something that can be bought.  There are other signs in the stories I’ve heard of men eating the eggs and chicken and generally nutritious foods while the women and children eat potatoes and corn.  The practice of polygamy is extremely common.  The last trainings I conducted were at a house of a man who had nine wives.  Nine.  And over 50 children.  After that I casually asked my driver Hussein if he planned to have more than one wife, and he said yes, if I can get the money, I can get another wife.  Really the only reason he has only one is that he’s too poor.  After that we had a good chat, which really consisted of me getting a little fired up about it all and harassing him.  I asked him how he would feel if his wife had more than one husband, and he shook and said “No, I wouldn’t like that at all!”  It doesn’t matter that his wife would feel the same way.  These co wives often have to share the same house, and the competition between them is visible even during trainings.  On the last day, Hussein was talking about visiting me in America if he ever had enough money.  So I told him he could only visit America if he used his money to buy a plane ticket instead of buying another wife. 

Sorry, I really didn’t intend for this to be a man-hating post… moving on.

On the way to the school we had to transition from the taxi to motorbikes to get the rest of the way.  These motorbikes (boda-bodas) are everywhere.  They’re common taxis in the city and they’re how the majority of people in the rural areas get around.  Either those or bicycle or on foot.  It’s not uncommon to see three Ugandans and a baby packed on one of those motorbikes.  I had been forbidden to ride one because they’re just slightly dangerous, especially the way they weave in and out of cars, but I was secretly glad that we had to take them.  (;  

If it looks slightly awkward, that's because it is.  While they're driving their backs are pressed against you and it's really the main thing keeping you on.  This is Friday, the director of the school that we visited.  He's obviously dressed a little nicer than most boda-boda drivers. 

An aside: one of my favorite things is watching Ugandans negotiate the price of boda-bodas, or really anything.  They speak so deliberately and discuss things with such passion, like it takes the whole of their face and bodies to push out the words.  They're definitely not afraid of conflict.  During trainings when these discussions would break out, I obviously had no idea what they were saying. I always tried to guess what the conversation was about, and with the intensity it was easy to imagine that the fate of Uganda or perhaps the world hung in the balance.  But usually it had more to do with the fate of someone who washed their plates in dirty water or ate too much fat or something like that.

Our next transportation adventure was the ride from the school to Jinja by taxi.  I’m not sure what you’re picturing when I say “taxi”, but picture a sketch 15 passenger van rigged out for the purposes of ferrying people back and forth.  These vans are also everywhere.  It’s pretty cheap, like 4000 shillings to go 70 km, but they pack you in like sardines.  There’s a man who hangs out the window trying to get people to ride in his taxi, and even when you think the van is completely full they pack in another person.  At one point we had 20 people in this 15 passenger van.  Half of me was wedged under the armpit of the young man on my right and the other half behind the sweaty man on my left.  For some reason I found the whole thing amusing and just tried keep from laughing, which is probably how I’ve handled most of the uncomfortable situations I’ve been in here.  But then it got hot and my patience started to wear very thin.  It seemed like we stopped every 5 minutes so these men could pack another person in the van (what should have been a one hour journey took two hours).  After a while, I honestly wanted to kill something (the likely target being the taxi men).  I was so happy when we finally made it.  I doubt jail in Uganda would be very pleasant. 

The trip in Jinja itself was fun but fairly uneventful.  I saw other muzungus for the first time in 2 weeks.  We got to ride some more motorbikes, she took me to some of the local craft shops, and we went out to see the source of the Nile.  From the shore, at least.  Turns out, Agnes is afraid of boats.  She felt bad, but she wasn’t going on that boat.  We ventured to a reptile park a little ways down from the boat dock, the whole way telling Agnes she would have to hide my eyes when we passed the snakes.  If you don’t know, I have smaaallll, little snake phobia.  And if you use that against me I won’t forgive you.   So when we got to the reptile park I decided it wasn’t worth paying money to be scared.  Agnes was scared of the boat and I was scared of the snakes, so we were even, but we made for terrible adventurers. 

Greensie and Beanies

I certainly couldn’t go without posting about one of my primary loves, food.  I’ve made an effort to learn as much about the Ugandan diet as I could (both in theory and hands on… definitely the best kind of learning when it comes to food).  I often tell them how jealous I am because their climate allows them to grow almost anything they want.  I warn you, this post will be long.  Food deserves some good attention.   

The Ugandan diet, like many diets in developing countries, is based entirely on starch.  SO MUCH STARCH.  For a girl who grew up on meat and veggies and has a relatively low carb intake (not for health reasons, just because I enjoy other foods more), this is probably the biggest culture shock.  Their staple foods are cassava (whole or dried and made into flour for bread or posho, a paste-like dish), maize (sometimes whole and roasted, but usually in the form of white refined flour made into posho or porridge), green starchy banana (steamed and mashed to make matoke), Irish potato, white sweet potato, rice, sorghum, and millet.  When they eat a meal, it’s usually a plate full of the carb(s) of choice… like the amount I would consider appropriate for three people… along with a little bit of meat in broth and maybe some greens or tomatoes or beans, which they consider a vegetable.

You might notice that this means the majority of their diet, aside from being mostly starch, is mostly white.  I encourage things like yellow maize, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, and whole grains, and an organization called HarvestPlus (focuses on biofortification) is also becoming active in the area to mobilize farmers to plant orange-fleshed sweet potatoes… what great timing.   Hopefully these things will actually be adopted.

One of the kitchens I had the opportunity to visit.  The covered pots are where matoke and posho are steaming, and the center pot is obviously some meat.  The only ventilation for the smoke from these fires is a space at the top of the wall, below the ceiling.  I stood in there as long as I could without breathing very much, and Agnes made fun of my strained face.  I don't know how they do it.

This mess of a picture is a field, or garden.  Not all of them are this crazy, but this isn't unusual.  You can see corn, cassava, some peas, beans, a young avocado tree?, and many other plants that I can't identify.

One of the dishes I really like is called pilau (pilaf).  It’s mostly rice, with spices and a bit of meat and some potato usually mixed in.  In the market they also dress it with a bit of cabbage and a couple slices of tomato.  This dish is definitely Hussein’s favorite… he orders it every day for lunch.  I ordered it for a few days, but of course soon got tired of eating a whole bowl full of rice.  One of the more nutritious starch options I could order is probably matoke, and I do sometimes, but unfortunately I don’t like it very much.  It’s so starchy and heavy and mostly flavorless unless they cook it in sauce.  It’s like every time I take a bite I want it to be a little sweet because it’s a banana, but sadly it never is. 

Pilau on a good day, with meat I can easily chew and a decent portion of greens.  I've already eaten some of it at this point, and this was only a half order.  In the background you can see the delicious afia, which is a mango concentrate drink with added sugar.  That baby has like 50 g of sugar.

Agnes tells me that a lot of Indians lived here in the 1970’s, and besides leaving behind buildings and businesses, they also left behind a few culinary treats.  I was surprised to find chapatti (a kind of cross between naan and a tortilla that I’ve eaten many times with Amudhan) was commonly made in the restaurant and marketplace.  It’s delicious.  They also have other versions of fried breads, generally not sweet.  Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve really had any type of dessert since I’ve gotten here, except for the chocolate bar that Andrea gave me (which Agnes and Namukose also loved… thanks Andrea).  Then of course, there’s the soda, which is definitely the most “American” thing I’ve encountered.  Pepsi and Coca-Cola have quite pervasive marketing (their signage is everywhere), and the irony of having bottles of Coke and Pepsi but no clean water source does not escape me.   

I think these little coke delivery trucks are pretty cute.

For protein foods, they eat meat (usually beef or goat… pork is not around due to Muslims), chicken, eggs, fish (larger fish or the small anchovy-like silver fish), organs, eggs, and insects.  The protein component of a meal is usually small though, and because meat is expensive many in the rural districts can’t afford it on a regular basis.  There’s a little bit of a “poor people” stigma connected to eating silver fish and insects, but I tell them they’re good sources of nutrition and I hope they keep eating them.  I feel a bit hypocritical when they then ask me if I eat them.  :/  Agnes talks about these white ants that they take and dry and then eat as a snack.  She says “It is not yet the season for these ants.  It’s too bad you will not be here to try them, they are very good!”  Yes Agnes, I’m devastated.  (;  This might be one dish I’m ok missing out on, but of course if they offered them to me I would try them.  If they can eat them, I can, right?

When I first walked through this little market, I stopped at the stand across from this fish stand, the cabbage lady, and hadn't yet seen the fish.  The whole time I was standing at the cabbage lady I was like "what is that awful smell??  It can't be the cabbage"... and then I turned around.  You can't see all the flies, but let's just say there were enough to make me not want to try silver fish.

One of the many open-air butcher shops along the market and streets. 

They also grow beans, peanuts (usually they eat roasted or boiled fresh), other types of nuts, like sesame, peas, and soy beans.  I’ve taken to calling them soya beans because it’s what I hear all the time here.  Ugandans use maize and soya beans as staple foods in the diet, rather than animal feed or ingredients for food processing as we do in America.  

The most common vegetables by far (not counting potatoes/sweet potatoes) are greens (from any number of plants, like amaranth, peas, and pumpkin) and cabbage.  Tomatoes and eggplant are also common.  I’ve also seen peppers, pumpkins, green beans, and a few other things.  

Cabbage is commonly sold sliced in little bags, and I think it just ferments a little by the time they eat it.  This obviously isn't the most hygienic situation for slicing cabbage, so I'm sure there are plenty of natural bacteria.  (: 

Fruits are in abundance during harvest season, and they’re all the delicious tropical things I wish I could grow in my backyard- avocados, bananas (both sweet and starchy), mangos, pineapple, citrus, passion fruit, jackfruit, etc.  More than once I’ve been given mangos, avocados, and even a pumpkin as gifts at the trainings.   I think they expect me to take some of the fruits and vegetables home with me, but I have to tell them there’s little chance of getting them through the airport.  I’ve developed the important life skill of peeling a mango with my hands and teeth and chewing it off the seed like the children do.  So much more efficient than using a pesky knife, and then I get the whole mango.  Oh, and they also grow coffee and cacao. 

One of these jackfruits is the size of a small child and a quick internet search tells me they can weigh between 10 and 80 lbs.  I have yet to taste them because it's a little early in the season, but I am determined.  

In the mornings I take breakfast at the hotel, which involves a slice of white bread, potatoes or starchy bananas in some form, an egg either hard boiled or in an omelet thing, and some black tea with milk.  Ugandans often seem to sit with people they don't know at meals, so every now and then I meet someone interesting at breakfast.  Last weekend a popular Ugandan singer named Bobi Wine happened to be staying at the same guest house as me (it’s really the only option in the area).  He and his manager and one of the members of the band sat down at the table with me and we talked for a bit.  Bobi drove a big loud truck, talked mostly of partying, made some crude jokes, and was generally kind of a tool, but it was still a fun experience.  

I obviously didn't take this picture, but I wanted you to have the pleasure of meeting Bobi Wine too.  (;

Other than breakfast, I eat my biggest meal for lunch around 2:00 or 3:00 when Hussein and I go to the restaurant, and I don’t really eat for the rest of the day.  Maybe some snacks in the evening if I’m hungry.  I’m thankful that after a few days my system decided to adjust to Ugandan time and temperature, because for a couple of days I could hardly eat anything and just guzzled water. 

The restaurant experience is one that has taken some getting used to.   There is one restaurant in town, which Hussein and I went to every day for the first week I was here.  A meal typically costs between 3000-6000 shillings depending on what you get, which is the equivalent of $1-$2 American dollars.  They don’t have menus, so when we sit down Hussein just says “What do you want?”  The typical order is the carb source, some meat, and maybe some greens or beans on the side.  For me it’s something like a puzzle, a game to see how I can try new things and end up with as few carbs and as many vegetables as possible.  It’s more challenging than you would think.  For instance, if I wanted to order just beans and meat and vegetables, they wouldn’t know what to do with me.  One time I ordered just chapatti and beans, and again, they didn’t know what to do with me.  Hussein usually asks me a few times to clarify really, that’s really what you want? before relaying the message to the waitress.   And when he orders me greens and beans, he says greensie and beanies, which never fails to make me laugh.  I think at this point I’ve tried pretty much everything they offer.

After about a week of eating at the restaurant, I asked Hussein if there were any other restaurants in town, to which he said no.  I asked if there was food at marketplace (I’d seen them at least making chapatti), and he seemed surprised that I wanted to go there, but agreed.  Side note: he kept calling restaurants “hotels”, which I didn’t pick up on for a while and led to some funny exchanges.   When we eat at the market, we sit down at a little table outside, they bring us our orders, and we eat it with our hands.  There are usually 5-10 people watching me while I eat.  Sometimes they laugh or say things, and Hussein says, laughing, “They are wondering… wondering what is this white skin doing in the marketplace eating with her hands??  White skin don’t eat in the marketplace.”  I love eating in the market and I love eating with my hands because I get to use one more sense to experience it.  When I eat when my hands I feel more connected with my food and the people who made it, and I love being among Ugandans eating Ugandan food how the Ugandans eat it, even if it makes them wonder and laugh.   

My view of the market from where we sit to eat.  The place where we usually get our food is on the far left.

Humans of Bugiri

I’d like to introduce to you some of my friends here in Uganda.  I think they’re all pretty great people, and I hope their stories will give you some idea of what their lives are like here.  There are others I have met and interacted with, but these are the people I know the best.  

Agnes

Agnes, my translator, is a lovely, strong, funny women.  She is a farmer, school teacher, the leader of Nankoma RPO (Rural Producer Organization), and the mother of eight children.  She has six boys (the only name I know is Andrew).  In her words, “For a time I was having a baby every year!  I was breeding like a rabbit!  So I finally said, enough!  We are going for family planning.”  (:  Later she decided she wanted to try for a girl, so Esther and Immaculate were born.  Her oldest boy just finished studying agriculture at the university, and her youngest, Immaculate, is six years old.  Her husband is a retired animal vet.  Agnes is the most fluent English speaker I know, so in waiting times before trainings we’ll talk about America and Uganda, especially pertaining to agriculture and food and health.  She shows me different plants and talks about all the different things that people eat, and every now and then she’ll buy me something to try.  You can tell that people respect her, and I won’t be surprised at all when someday she runs for a district office. 

Peeling sugar cane for me to taste.  You can't eat the fiber part, obviously, but you mush it with your teeth and suck out the sweet water.  These machete-like knives are everywhere.  I think it's the only kind of knife they have.  The little kids even walk around with them to cut up their jackfruit.

Esther and Immaculate, who I met when we briefly visited Agnes' home.  The boys were all out working or away at school.  Esther (11) was cooking silver fish, a common anchovy-like fish (or maybe they are anchovies, I don't know) that you buy dried in the marketplace.  Immaculate (6) always seemed to have a ornery look on her face, and I think she looks just like her mom. 

Hussein

Hussein, my driver, is the person I spend the most time with.  He is probably about 35, has a wife and two kids, and usually drives a taxi or something for a living.  When I asked him if he wanted more kids, he kind of groaned and shoot his head and said “No! I don’t want anymore kids.”  (:  He takes me to Nankoma every morning, hangs around while I do the trainings, and drives me home.  He’s also my go-between at the copy shop or market or restaurant to make sure I’m getting when I want and they don’t charge me extra.  He seems to have many friends in the town, so he’s often yelling or waving or honking at someone.  Because his English is barely conversational, most of our time together is spent in silence, punctuated by my curious questions. 

Hussein, do you have lions and elephants in Uganda?  

(Yes.  One time there was a boy, Ivan, riding with us, and he asked me if we had wild lions and elephants and leopards in the United States.  I sadly had to inform him that we do not.  There would be some logistical issues with wild lions and leopards in the US).

Hussein, why do you turn your turn signal on too when someone passes you?

(In Uganda, if a driver wants to pass, he must first request to pass, and the driver in front lets him know that it’s safe.  Can you imagine American drivers being that nice?)

Hussein, why do I often see men walking along holding arms or hands?

(I asked this one pretty carefully, and it took awhile for him to understand what I meant because he didn’t know that it was anything unusual.  Ugandans, and probably Africans in general, are just more physically affectionate with their friends, even the men.  (:  They’re very community oriented, and their personal bubbles are definitely smaller.)

Hussein, why is that small child wearing a fuzzy snow cap when it’s 80 degrees?   

That one is still a mystery.

When I ask things he usually says “come again?” and I repeat the question at least twice.  Sometimes I’m able to understand the answer, and sometimes I have to bring the question to Agnes.  Probably the longest back and forth conversation Hussein and I had was about politics.  Go figure.  For the record, he likes the Ugandan president.  But apparently he’s been in office for 30 years, so many people would like a new one. 

Hussein has to put up with the most of my questions and antics.   Every day after the trainings, we go to the restaurant for lunch (lunch here is later, around 1:00 or 2:00 pm… we usually get there at 2:30 or so). When we go to the restaurant, I insist on eating with my hands like he and most Ugandans do (shout out to Amudhan for teaching me).  Now, the chicken in Uganda is not like we have in America.  The chickens are definitely free range, so their meat is tougher.  One day specifically I had to gnaw and chew on that little chicken quarter in a most unladylike way, and he politely ignored me.  I generally make a mess and probably look ridiculous, but he doesn’t make fun of me (usually).  He also scolds me when I clean up the mess I’ve made on the table because he says it’s not my job.  He gives me suggestions and tips when I ask for them and tries to make sure I have what I need, like napkins (he usually offers to have them bring me a knife, but I stubbornly refuse).

Like most Ugandans, he is also perpetually late.  One morning I specifically told him to come at 8:45 because we needed to go to the copy shop and a store before heading to Nankoma.  He showed up at 9:30.  When I asked him why he was late, he said he was washing the car (eye roll… men…).  That morning power in the whole town happened to be out, so we also had to drive around to four copy shops before we found one with a generator.  I guess it’s all part of the adventure.

Hussein waiting for me to catch up as we walked through the market to buy sweet bananas.

Martha

Martha works at the reception desk at the guest house where I’m staying.  Morning and evening she always greets me with the biggest smile, and says “Amba, I have missed you!”.  We usually spend some time chatting in the mornings while I wait for the ever-late Hussein.  She’s somewhere in her early 20’s, and she actually started the job at the hotel only two days before I got there.  She is from Jinja, a city about an hour away and a popular tourist destination.  She had finished school (I’m not sure whether she meant secondary school or college) a year before, but it is very hard to find work in Uganda, so she spent a year applying wherever she could.  She says that to get a job in Uganda, you must either know someone or bribe them to hire you, if you have the money.  Finally, a friend who worked at the guest house was able to get her a job here.  She works 6:30 to 11:00 pm every day of the week, and I think the only free time she gets is on Sunday when she is allowed to go to church.  Every time I see her though, she’s smiling, and I think she’s just grateful for the opportunity to work.    

   

Namukose Nulu

Namukose, Agnes’ friend, is a mother of at least 6 children I think (it’s hard to keep track of them).  She is also a nurse, a midwife, and a chairwoman of a ministry for orphans of AIDS.  She’s always very helpful during trainings, passing out handouts and taking attendance and helping make soya milk, though I’m sure she must have many other things to do.  This afternoon as we were waiting for the soya milk to cook, Agnes casually mentioned that there was a newborn baby in the house next door, born just a little while ago.  At my confused and slightly worried stare, she explained that Namukose, who was sitting right next to me, had just delivered a baby a couple of hours ago in that house.  The woman didn’t have time to make it to the hospital.  She said, you want to go see it?  So we did.  And when I say we, I mean Agnes, Namukose, and the caravan of 10 children who went wherever I went.  We found the baby all wrapped up in blankets and the first-time mother both sitting on a mat on the dirt floor in their dark house.   It was actually the newest baby I’ve ever seen and touched, even newer than any of my nieces and nephews.  (:  It couldn’t have been more different than the sterile hospital rooms and hand sanitizer dispensers at all my other newborn baby visits. 

Namukose, Agnes, Me, and Hussein after one of the trainings.  If only they would smile in pictures...

Trainings, Part 2

I’ve now conducted another two sets of trainings with farmers in nearby villages.  The first we held in a school room, and on the first day the room was packed with about 50 women and a few men, and children were hanging on the windows and in the doorway.  I didn’t have enough handouts for this many women, which they got kind of quarrelsome about (…women…).  Even if they can’t read them, they each want their own handout.  I think that some of the women also sometimes come because they’re hoping for money or food.  Oh well, hopefully they’ll take away some helpful information in place of the money I don’t give them.  In case I’m making them sound stingy, I’ll also say that a nice woman brought me 5 beautiful large avocadoes as a gift.  I’ve found them to be very nice people.  Not polite perhaps in the way that mid-westerners are, but friendly.  And most of the people are genuinely interested in the trainings.  The second set of trainings were held under a tree outdoors, which was very pleasant except for the bugs and the ever-present chickens.  There are always chickens roaming around everywhere, but I’m told they always find their way back home.  I had no idea chickens had enough brain in them to do that.   Under this tree, I also managed to stand right under where a bird decided to “defecate”, as they say.  Twice.  I’m telling myself it’s a sign of good luck, and double the poop means double the luck.  Either that or the African birds have decided to claim me as their own, which I think is also a good sign.   

Waiting for the other women to arrive.  As you can see, my lecture materials include a stand, flip chart, and markers (and of course, Agnes).

It is difficult to convey the level to which our food knowledge and customs differ.   I’ve received so many interesting, funny, and sometimes sad stories and questions… not all of which am I able to answer.  Sometimes they want advice on how to handle certain medical conditions, which I’m clearly not qualified to address.  I’ve been asked about leg pain and feet pain and chest pain and other random things.  I guess because I went to University they consider me a general expert.  I certainly don’t want to misinform them, so I’ve learned to only tell them what I know and be firm about not saying anything I’m uncertain about.  Sometimes I’m able to look things up at night and tell them the next day.   It’s particularly difficult when my advice conflicts with advice they’ve been given by their doctor, like that drinking water with meals is dangerous?  Or that eating raw eggs helps with ulcers or heart disease?  I don’t know where they get these things.  I told them they could eat raw eggs if they wanted, but they might die of diarrhea instead of heart disease. 

That sounds a little flippant, so I’d like to clarify that I emphasize thoroughly cooking animal products.

In addition to being asked about eating raw eggs, I’ve been asked about drinking raw pancreas juice (apparently it has perceived healthful properties… maybe the enzymes?), drinking raw blood from the cow, and eating raw insects.  I encourage eating insects as a good source of protein, but not raw. Agnes said it used to be common to think that if a fly landed in your tea, it was a sign of a blessing from God.  So instead of removing the fly from their tea, they would push it down to the bottom again and again until they finished their tea.  Luckily I think that practice is on its way out.  For the most part, they understand the important food safety things, especially when it comes to clean water and washing things pretty well, but the nature of their outdoor/indoor farming lifestyle means that the way they handle food and cooking equipment would still make most people in the US cringe.  

Some of the kids that are always hanging around the trainings.  When they see that I have candy to hand out, they are infinitely more interested in what's going on.  Today a little girl cried when she saw me (again, I think it's the white skin thing), and I had to bribe her with a sucker to get her to tolerate me.

One young women talked about struggling to breastfeed due to lack of milk and asked what she could do.  This issue is particularly difficult because she has very limited options.  Formula is expensive.  It’s also not safe to give your child to another mother to breastfeed because of the risk of contracting AIDS.  And contrary to a recent trend that has apparently surfaced in the US, homemade formula is not a good option.

(stepping on soapbox... if you ever hear anyone talking about making their own formula and why it’s better than commercial formulas, you should probably smack them and tell them to wake up from their mom-blog daze.  Companies put millions of dollars and years and years of research into figuring out what should go into formulas to make them as healthful as possible, and you think you can do better?  It’s not only stupid, it’s endangers the health of your child at a critical stage of growth... stepping off soapbox)   

I’ve also heard more than one story of a mother being poor and feeding their young child only cassava porridge or maybe white corn porridge.  The child obviously didn’t do well.  Anemia, as I said before, is a big problem, and many children die from it, so we spend some time talking about good sources of iron.  Vitamin A is another common deficiency, and they lack a lot of ‘orange’ in their diet.  Their maize is white, their sweet potatoes are white, and the only common orange thing seems to be mango.  Their egg yolks are a nice deep yellow from the "free range" chickens, but eggs are expensive.  So I talk a lot about liver.  I wish that fortification or supplementation were options, especially for pregnant women, but at this point I don’t think it’s practical.  However, things like carrots and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes are available to them for growing, so I’ll be recommending the adopt more of these crops, at least for their personal use. 

This sweet girl wanted to take a picture of me, but I made her be in it with me instead.

Some of the women want to talk about business and how they can use the things that they are learning to make money.  So we talk about composite flours and sprouted grains and soy milk, and I put on my stern face (which doesn’t get very stern) and tell them that when they are making things for others, the food safety things we’ve talked about become extra important.  Then Agnes puts her stern face on and tells them that she will help them, but to take the learnings from the training and apply them for the health of their families and potentially a business- it’s up to them. 

The 3rd training group.  When we take a picture they love to see it and find themselves and ooo and ahh over it.  You can see the one woman in the middle hiding her face behind the cup of soya milk that we just made.

I have two more sets of normal trainings- Wed/Thur., and Fri/Mon (I'll post more about my weekend activities later). On Tuesday I'll conduct a ToT training, which is for people who will be able to continue the training and act as a resource after I'm gone.  Additionally on Tuesday I'll be presenting to members of the district council to tell them about what I've done.  I will be traveling back to Kampala on Wednesday for a debriefing, and then Friday the 29th I head back to the states.  In some ways it seems like I've been here forever, and yet the time is going so quickly!  

Trainings, Part 1

I’d like to share about the work I was sent here to do, but it seems a little lengthy for one post, so I’ll break it up.  Stay tuned for Part 2.  (: 

I have been in the Bugiri district now since Monday evening.  I traveled here with Maria, a Ugandan who works at the CRS offices in Kampala and who handles many logistics of the volunteers.  On Tuesday we drove to Nankoma, which is a town anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes away, depending on how fast you decide to go through the immense pot holes in the red dirt road.  Through the course of the morning I met Agnes, the leader of Nankoma RPO, and other group leaders for farmers in the cooperative.  We discussed a schedule for my trainings and a basic outline of what I planned to cover.  My trainings with each group would be over two days, the first day being more focused on “theory”, and the second day focused on more practical information.

 

I’ll admit, at this point I was still a little out of it and more than a little nervous.  I had many thoughts of “What did I get myself into??  I’m not qualified for this!”

After saying goodbye to Maria as she headed back to Kampala (which also meant saying goodbye to the most fluent English speaker I knew), I got a chance to walk around and see some of the local produce and fish sold at a market nearby.  On Wednesday morning before the training began I was also able to walk around and see some women cooking traditional dishes, like posho, matoke, potato, beans, etc.  I’ll post more about Ugandan food and cooking another time.  We also visited the main water source, and the hospital, where I saw pregnant mothers lined up for their check-ups and many AIDS patients lined up for their medicine.  Though I think the AIDS epidemic has at least stabilized and receded in Uganda, it’s obviously still a concern and a big focus of the government.   

The clean water source

Then, ready or not, it was time to start.  The trainings are generally supposed to be from around 10:00-2:00 pm, depending on how long things take.  To me it sounded like a very long time, but I realized that by the time we got started, and with the extra time it took to translate and discuss things, you’d be surprised at how quickly time goes.  On my first day, my stomach sank a little as 10:00 and 10:30 came and went and I thought that no one would show up, but I found there was no need to worry.  Ugandans often hold time in a very loose way, so after many agitated phone calls from Agnes, most of the farmers finally came around 11:00.  On this first day (with Agnes translating), I taught the basics of how we get carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals from our food and what foods are good sources of these things, and gave them a handout with a more Ugandan version of our food pyramid.  The ironic thing is that they have so many foods here which are considered very healthy in America, like avocado, mango, millet, beans, peanuts, etc…. but Ugandans either don’t really eat them or they don’t eat them to the level that they should.  Some people just let the avocados on their avocado trees fall to the ground and rot, which is certainly a crime.  I wish they would forget growing corn and soya bean and just grow fruits.  They have such a good climate for it!  For some, it is expensive and difficult to eat a balanced diet, but at least now I hope they understand how important it is, especially when pregnant or nursing. 

My first group of trainees.  I like this picture a lot for many reasons, and it makes me laugh. One, Agnes took it, so it's not very good and she cut people off. (:  The woman on the front left is holding the charcoal we used to start the fire, as if we need to see it in the picture.  In general, Ugandans usually look awkward in photographs, like they don't know what to do with themselves.  Before we took the picture, I think they were all making jokes about me being the only white head in the picture.  And I'm pretty sure during the picture I felt someone playing with my hair (I don't blame them, the texture is quite different).  

On the second day, I taught basics of infant and child nutrition, and anything else we didn’t get a chance to cover on the first day.  Then we covered specific things around selection and preparation that would allow them to get more nutrients from their food.  For example,

• using whole corn, sorghum, and millet, rather than just refined corn flour (basically starch) and cassava flour to make porridge and posho
• sprouting grains to help extract more nutrients and adding them to stews or porridge… which they always find hilarious.  It’s very uncommon to eat whole grains here.  I try to tell them that it’s becoming popular in America (:
• not peeling potatoes to get more fiber and minerals (this they also find hilarious and crazy)
•  cooking vegetables only as long as needed and saving the cooking water, which contains nutrients
•  not drinking black tea with meals because it inhibits iron absorption
• etc...

I get the sense that they are far less experimental with food than we are in the US.  They make things in the same way that their mothers made before them, and so on.  This is why they are shocked when I tell them to add whole grains to their stews or not peel potatoes or to trim some fat off of their meat from the butcher.  Along with this discussion, we talk about safe and hygienic cooking and eating practices.  Some of these they know, and some of which they have questions about, especially when I tell them they shouldn’t leave their food sit for several hours. 

At the end of the second day, we made soya milk, which was quite fun to teach.  It was definitely a little different than how it would go in America, so all of you be thankful for your sinks, blenders, and stoves.  Here is an outline of how it went…

• Agnes soaked some soya beans overnight for me, which we added to the large wooden mortar and pounded with the pestle to make a paste.  At first, I was doing the paste-making, which the women thought was funny (they usually treat me like I shouldn’t do any work… you know, really strenuous things… like picking up trash, carrying things, or standing for too long), but they enjoyed it.  It was at this point they told me that they wanted to give me some African princess name.  After a little bit Agnes took over because she was more effective.  (:  
• We added the soya bean paste with water from the rain tank to the pot.  I told them they could also add pounded sugar cane, sugar, or sweet banana to make it taste a little better.  They liked that tidbit. 
• The charcoal fire took a little while to get going, but once it was burning we simmered/boiled (it’s hard to control the heat) the soya milk over the fire for about 20 minutes.
• A friend of Agnes had run to the store and bought a piece of white synthetic clothing fabric to use as a strainer.  At first I thought it wouldn’t work because the holes were too small, but it ended up working out really nicely.  We strained the soya bean through the cloth, and poured it into a couple of cups that the women passed around.  Agnes told me I couldn’t try it because it might make me sick, but later one of the women handed me the cup and I couldn’t refuse.  It was pretty good.  And if I get sick, it’s probably more from sharing a cup with 10 women than from the water.  :/

This is Agnes, the star of the show. After she took over making soya bean paste, I got revenge by taking her picture.

Getting the fire going to cook the soya milk.  The Ugandan women seem to be pretty much immune to the smoke.  It's impressive, but probably not healthy.

Agnes does a wonderful job translating and explaining, although I obviously never really know what she’s saying.  I’m pretty sure she told them at one point that different parts of our bodies are shaped like different foods- for example, ovaries like avocados- as an explanation of why we need all these different nutrients.  In times like those I just smile and nod.  Whatever helps them understand.  (:  She probably says about 10 sentences for each of my one, but Ugandans are also just wordier in general.  

By the end of the second day, I started to feel more comfortable in my role, and I got the sense that the women (and men) enjoyed the information and thought it was helpful.  After I finished with the soy milk demonstration on the second day, one of the older women gave me a handshake (Ugandan version), a nod, and told me something in Lugandan.  Agnes laughed and explained that she said she likes me and she doesn't want me to go back to America, and that made my heart smile.