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.