Hello from Fort Portal!

Hello there! What a five days it has been. I've been without internet, so I apologize for the delay in posting my preliminary thoughts, but I plan to tell you as much as possible right now. And yes, mom, I'm safe!

One brief procedural note: you'll see I'm not writing a lot about my research. I'm doing that on purpose; I don't want to bore you! If you'd like to know more about my specific conversations and observations, please email me and I'll keep you informed throughout the summer and/or send you my final paper.

I arrived Wednesday night here (noon in the States) at Entebbe International Airport. The only difficult part of the customs process was the swine flu inspection; Uganda has a nurse stare at you for about 10 seconds and then declare you fit to enter the country. I was met at the airport by Stanley, my contact here, which was quite useful, because it was 8:15 at night (quite dark in Uganda) and Entebbe/Kampala is CRAZY. And I really do mean crazy; the driving here is quite different than anything in the states, especially at night. Our car (and all the others) were definitely only concerned with themselves! Stanley and I stayed at a small guesthouse (Manhattan) in Kampala. I was quite tired, and went to bed while Stanley stayed up to watch the Champions League final (which, unfortunately, Barcelona won). I also had my first experience with a shower; there was a faucet with cold water and a drain on the bathroom floor, which I assume I was supposed to squat under to shower. I didn't want to mess anything up, however, so I just rinsed myself off using the towel and some soap I brought. Just the first of many cultural challenges. I’ve gotten better at learning and adapting, though.

After a brief breakfast of bananas (quite good here!), we went into the Kampala city center. The drive was, like the night before, quite nerve-racking. The roads are literally filled with the 14-passenger minibus taxis (sometimes called matatus), and there was quite a bit of traffic getting to the city center. On the way, we passed the main cathedral, Namirembe, as well as a very large, ornate mosque erected by the 1970s dictator Idi Amin. The city is quite obviously growing, as there is building construction at almost every corner. It is also a bee-hive of activity; people go each and every way everywhere you look. In the city, I changed some money into Ugandan Shillings (current exchange rate is around 2200 Ush to a Dollar) and visited an internet café for a 5 minute session (there is little internet in Fort Portal and the parish I would visit, and I wanted to assure my parents I made it safely!). From the city center, we proceed to the Buganda bus park, another maze of activity. From there, buses depart for all over East Africa. We managed to find the "most reputable" bus company, Link's, bus to Fort Portal, which costs only 12,000 Ush. I'll let you do the math, but that's quite a deal! I paid more for the metro across DC every day last summer. According to Stanley, Link is the only company that he is sure will make it. I’m glad we used them! The bus was quite an experience. First, you buy a ticket from a gentleman in the bus park while buses come and go right beside your head. And these are BIG buses. Then, you get on (try to secure a window seat to get some air), and wait for the bus to fill. The bus doesn't depart until it fills. And I'm not talking all the seats full, but the entire bus full (including aisles). On our bus, we had probably 50 people, a mattress, some chickens, some plastic bottles (3oz or so…don't ask me why!), and numerous other products for transport. While the bus is loading and as it moves away, street vendors dangle chicken, bread, water, and more in your face (especially the face of a mzungu…a white person). The bus then pulls out of a far-too-small lot and heads out of the city.

Now seems like a good time to talk about language: some English is spoken by many people, but it is definitely not the vernacular. The language spoken on the bus was mostly Luganda, the language of the traditional Buganda kingdom in east-central Uganda. The language spoken where I am now, Fort Portal, is Rutooro. And the language spoken in Irahuura, the very rural parish I visited for two days is that of the Bachiga people. All three of those languages are different enough that I have to learn the key words in all, and it's been quite difficult to communicate (a problem I expected, but not at the level I've faced). Stanley, my contact here in Fort Portal, and Rev. Erasmas Kisembo (keep reading…) both speak good English, but they are the only people I've met so far who I can communicate complicated ideas with. The language factor has caused a large amount of the concern I've felt in the first few days; I'm not entirely sure I can handle Kampala without being able to communicate. Hopefully, however, I'll pick up on a little bit more of Luganda.

Back to the bus: I really enjoyed the ride across the country! The window seat of a bus is a very good way to see some of the country along the Kampala-Fort Portal Rd, and I was amazed at the sights and sounds of the fellow travelers (and their stares…I was definitely the only mzungu on the bus). At each stop (in towns along the way), street vendors seemed to materialize out of nowhere to and hold up their cooked foodstuffs (chicken, beef, sausage, chapati, and more things I couldn't recognize). The vistas along the way were also quite spectacular, as several large stone outcroppings (think Stone Mountain, Atlanta folks) rose out of the ground.

When we arrived, I rode a bodaboda (motorbike taxi) to Stanley's wife's store, a photocopy and print shop. It is like hundreds of stores seen along the road: a small room with an old printer and 1980s photocopier that manages to turn over a bit of money. Stanley also runs a school and farms a plot of land to sustain Pauli (his wife) and himself. They've welcomed me into their home, however, as their first ever visitor from outside of Uganda, and I couldn't be more thankful or more happy. Their home is in a rural area five or so kilometers outside of the town, and Stanley has borrowed a very old truck from a friend to help us travel there (normally, they would ride by boda but it's difficult with 3 people). The car is a bit of a mess (the suspension is definitely non-existent, a problem on the ravine-filled dirt roads), but the price and convenience (only paying for petrol) can't be beat. The Rutooro people have pet names/nicknames (mine is now Amoti), and we call the truck “Hummer,” which has become quite the joke.

Unfortunately, when I arrived at Stanley's house I had very little appetite and felt a bit sick to the stomach (chalk that up to 48 hours of almost constant travel). As a guest, I felt terrible refusing the food that Pauli offered (and food is, as in any poor area, quite valuable here). I went to sleep Thursday night hoping to feel better in the morning.

Friday morning, we traveled to town early (8:00 or so) to meet a Reverend from a parish about 40 km out of the city (but in the Ruwenzori Diocese, which is based in Fort Portal). The Reverend, Rev. Erasmas Kisembo, met me in a "Christian Guest House" that he helps administer and we talked at length about religious worship for three hours. Then, we ate lunch of matooke (mashed plantains) and G.nut sauce (a brown sauce made out of nuts) from out of a buffet style line….though I know the heath clinic told me not to do that, and I hired a car to take us to his parish. (It's a very rural area and he normally travels by boda (motorbike taxi), but 40 km on a boda on bumpy dirt roads didn't seem like the safest bet…I did heed some of the safety warnings!).

In Iruhuura, the parish of Rev. Erasmas, I spent quite a bit of time talking with the church leaders (lay readers, etc.), with the Reverend, and with the people of the area. The area is quite rural and very beautiful (very hilly), and there are not even villages (just fields with shacks), but the people are quite hard-working, though quite poor. Two major indicators, literacy and HIV prevalence, are quite bad (as literacy is very low and HIV prevalence very high). I was the first white person many of the younger children had seen, and was received with an extraordinary amount of respect as a guest everywhere I went and from everyone with whom I spoke. That amount of respect was very, very difficult for me to deal with…I really am here to learn from the people, but I have to accept it as a part of the society and culture. Guest-taking is held to a very high esteem.

In Iruhuura I also visited the health clinic and the SACCO. The health clinic (rated level 3 by the government) is very, very basic and serves a large section of the community. It offers basic services for AIDS patients and mothers, and then tries to deal with TB, Polio, and other diseases as best it can (it's not really able to deal at all). It doesn't have any power (the entire area has no power), and the staff salaries are low, but they do work very, very hard to help ease the suffering of the people of the valleys. The SACCO (co-operative credit union of sorts that is owned by people of the sub-county who buy shares and that offers micro-financing to people in the area) was a very, very cool experience. I attended a shareholders meeting of sorts (they are held every quarter on a Saturday morning), and about 100 members gathered to discuss the state of the group. The major piece of debate was the rising cost of a share (from 10,000 Ush to 20,000 Ush). The meeting was conducted in Rutooro and Buchinga (the vernacular languages of the two tribes of the area), but Erasmas translated some and I picked up on other bits through expressions and hand motions. In a lot of ways, the meeting was very similar to any large group meeting in the US, as people spoke, others jumped up to defend or attack the point, etc. The SACCO does not have a lot of money, but it is doing real, good work to help develop the region.

The largest issue for all initiatives from the area is transport; the only way to get to the area is on a very bad rural road that is completely impassable after rain (and it rains 6 months of the year here). The hospital and SACCO have no way to transport people or things to and from any town.

In Iruhuura I stayed with the Reverend and his wife in his home. There is no electricity in the village, and the food is all cooked over fires. The toilet is a hole, and I quite quickly learned that the sanitation tips offered by the wonderful UNC Health Clinic are only valuable in certain settings. I was offered everything the Reverend had to offer, however, as the honored guest. Again, it was quite difficult to be the guest, but a position in which the society placed me. I'm so very grateful to the entire Iruhuura community and to the Reverend for taking me and showing me how they worship and live.

As you might expect, there is a lot of prayer from the people with whom I am traveling and staying. They are religious people. The subject of the prayer, however, is interesting: there is nothing too small to pray about. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve prayed over a glass of water or a cup of tea the past few days. That concept, of thankfulness for even the small things, is actually quite refreshing.

The ride back was also quite interesting; I hired the same car to take the Rev. and I back to town, but it had rained and the road was VERY bad. The car is a Toyota Corolla (Toyota is by far the leading seller in the motorcycle and car market), and it was definitely not built to drive where it did. It was hairy at several points, but we were able to get down. The cost was 40,000 Ush (about 18 dollars), but after that ride I felt like I owed the driver much more for the 40 km of pure terror he drove through.

Some final thoughts: as you can see, I dove right into a culture that is very different than my own. In a lot of ways, it has been very good, but I won’t lie and say that is hasn’t been challenging. At home, I am able to adapt to different people and different backgrounds very well (I add or drop a Southern accent whenever I want, for example), but here I do not understand the cultural norms and have found it quite hard to adapt to how I should address people, how I should greet (some tribes touch wrists while other people shake), etc. Everything about this trip is a learning experience that will be very valuable.

Now, Saturday evening, I'm writing this blog post. I'll post it tomorrow afternoon at an internet café in Fort Portal (there will be no time when I’m there to write it, as internet is very expensive here), and will post again from Kampala on Wednesday.

I sincerely thank you for reading; as I travel alone, I have very little way to share my thoughts. In a lot of ways, my journal (and now this blog) is an outlet to a world I know, and I really do appreciate your reading.