Nyakarambi - the village

I am now in Kampala, and spent the last week travelling with Charles, Hilda's cousin, who has become a dear friend. He's close to my age, and spent his childhood in a small village until he moved to the still very rural town of Kabale. He has a fascinating perspective of someone whose life has bridged three very different worlds. From the village, to the town and to the city. He still has not travelled abroad, but hopes to one day. Charles was supposed to leave me in the village and come back to Kampala, but he ended up staying in the village and traveled with me (which I am sure will relieve many of you) to Kabale - the town where Clara's mother Joy lives.

We left Kampala on bus, and had some adventure. On the way there I jumped off for a quick "short call" at what was supposed to be a long pit stop, but I returned to find the bus had left without me! I jumped on a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) to catch up to the bus and found it stopped some distance ahead. When I got on, the bus started moving again but as I made my way to my seat I found Charles had jumped off to find me! I called to the bus driver to stop again, and called Charles on my cell phone - a miracle that it happened to have reception at that moment since it hasn't had any since - and told him I was on the bus. He made it back quickly and the rest of our ride to Nyakarambi was uneventful aside from the incredible landscapes and blurry glimpses of african life I caught as we drove by.

I am getting used to the scenery of the highway, children playing beside the road as cars race by, women walking long distances carrying jugs of water, bananas, or other things on their head, with a baby wrapped up on her back, beautiful cattle with long magnificent horns. I no longer want to snap a photo of every graceful african woman I drive past, or wizened gray haired african men riding bicycles with humourously large objects strapped to the back.

The bus dropped us in the middle of nowhere on the side of the highway, in front of a handfull of small shops and women selling sweet potatoes, matoke (a type of banana that resembles more a plantain) and tomatoes.

Immediately, at least 10 men rushed up to us yelling "Muzungu, where to?" I pointed them to Charles who knew where we were going. He negotiated for some time with the men, it was funny to watch him with them without understanding the words. They argued for awhile and eventually we boarded a small taxi which drove us along a series of small dirt roads lined by thick vegetation. It had recently rained and the roads appeared completely impassable to me -- to 4 wheel drive pickups much less the rickety old 20 year old 4 door sedan we were in. After a fairly long distance and a short time spent g lost arriving at another village we arrived at our destination -- Nyakarambi.

It's a small community of maybe 1000 people, and it was breathtakingly beautiful. Green lush banana plantations, green hills with terraced farms in the distance, just incredible. The entire family came out to greet us and they were warm and welcoming and wonderful. They were so happy to have a visitor, much less one from so far away.

Byamukama, our host, is my age but had to leave university lacking money for the fees, and unable to find a job in Kampala decided to return to village life. It would be easy to romanticize life there, for much of what I expected to see - tight family communities, happy children playing in wide open spaces, an abundance of culture and a more stable life was absolutely there. However that was far from all I saw, and I have learned a great deal about real life by my visit.

After arriving, Byamukama, Charles and I walked down to see the primary water source for the people here. A small very dirty stream. Some children had come down with their jerry cans to fetch the water - the ubiquitous yellow jerry can. You can't go 10 feet here - even in Kampala without seeing some transporting water in one. In Kampala the water found inside at least reasonably clean and comes out of a facet with treated water (though families may pay a great portion of their income for it).

Here in the village, I watched as the children (between 8-10 years old) walked up to the edge of the stream and dumped the can into the water letting it fill. We asked to take their picture and they were thrilled. For them getting water like this was completely normal. Many of them don't even boil it.

Before long we had a throng of children behind us, their numbers exponentially increasing as soon as I brought out my camera. They all yelled, "yeah!" when I asked if they wanted a picture. They crowded each other to get into the shot. After taking a few I showed them the picture on the camera and they were so delighted and laughing and pointing out their friends.

So nice, sweet and and good except these children were not well. Most of them had impossibly extended stomachs, their belly buttons sticking out like pregnant women. Apparently this is due to a kind of worm I think that comes from the water and the ground. They all had runny noses and many had serious coughs - drinking water from the river immediately causes flu. None had shoes (which is how they get worms I am told) and their clothes were truly tattered rags - rips tied together to keep shirts on the sholders. These were just little boys and girls - happy smiling faces.

They all wanted to touch me and feel my skin and hair, and I felt like it was a great thing for them to be able to explore how white skin is no different from theirs. I told them that as they all scrambled to get ahold of my hands and arms and hair. I immediately decided that if I caught something - so be it. When I'd had enough they immediately listened and followed us a little distance behind.

I tried to talk to people, and started to learn a few phrases and they were really appreciative that I had made an effort. I danced with them, and drank the local brew from the communal pot out of straws (real straws - not plastic straws), and all the time they laughed and encouraged me warmly. Everyone told me "You are welcome! You are welcome!".

Families live in mud houses with thatched roofs or houses from clay bricks attached with mud. Dirt floors and mud walls, with newspaper as wallpaper. But they were just normal homes - with tended gardens, clothes drying on a line. These were different, but I could see that the materials that constituted their home is not poverty. It's warm here, so those houses were in some ways more comortable than the alumunium roofed homes that heat up unbearably in Kamapala.

I have come to get used to the pit latrines and showers from a bucket - it's really not that big of a deal. The poverty comes from lack of water, lack of basic health care, and information\education. One of the women who lives on the same compound where I stayed is dying of Aids, her beautiful son Allen wants to go to school to be a doctor. He's 14, and was one of those people you take one look at and know he is a good kind kid. His father is gone, and soon he will be orphaned - but his aunts and uncles will look after him.

There are so so many orphans. Oh my god. Aids has caused such great harm here. Aunts and grandomthers care for dozens of children even after they have raised there own. I have met countless African women who live in service to get their nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and children of friends educated and cared for. Here in the village, I stayed with Darfois who is probably in her late 50's cares for several children scraping to get money for school fees.

I visited two schools while I was here, and each made a huge production out of my visit - Gathering the entire school for me to talk to. I had brought with me some gifts, a large box of excercise books (notebooks), pens and pencils as well as soccer balls, a frisbee (which the positively loved) and a baseball. These schools had nothing more than benches and chalk boards, but when I asked the children who among them wanted to go to university every single child immediately raised their hand.

They had great questions - How old are you? Are you married? Do you have children? Are both of your parents alive?

Very few children here have both of their parents still alive. I think I have mentioned that the average life expectancy here is just over 50. These children were smart, kind, good, fun loving, hard working - every child I asked said they loved to go to school.

I can't even begin to describe the overwhelming feeling of injustice that washes over me when I play with these kids and realize how much we waste and take for granted and the disturbing sense of entitlement we have at home.

These children need clean water, medicine for worms and basic infections, they need to be treated for malaria - and even more importantly they need information and opportunity to envision and create a better life for themselves.

If people at home want to help - one thing is to pay the school fees for orphans. I have met many children who can't finish school because there is no parent around to pay. I have become friends with several head masters and mistrisses of schools I would unflinchingly trust with scholarship money.

Another terrible reality here in rural Africa is domestic violence and a total lack of women's liberation at it's worst. It's beyond anything I could have imagined. Literally - it is common for the woman's work to be doing all manual labor on the farm - all the digging (with a how) all the planting, all the work - come home and cook dinner, care for the children, clean the house, sell the produce - and the men then come and take what the women have earned and go buy alcohol. I am not kidding. I saw countless drunk men in the middle of the day, but few women.

Also, polygamy is common. I guess I can understand - for a woman a husband would have to be a huge burden - I literally struggled to find any way that the husbands were contributing to the household in many cases - why on earth would any woman want to have to support one all on her own? I am not being light, or funny here. I am being very serious. Educated men and women together list it as one of the major cultural obstacles to bringing Uganda out of poverty.

The men on the other hand can hardly grasp the concept that many American men don't want to get married or have children. Even the educated men here have a sensibility about family that resembles that of my grandfather's generation. They value it greatly, perhaps because they don't feel as invincible and invulnerable as we tend to feel at home. I don't know.

I have had several marriage proposals, including one to be someone's second wife. I had to take a moment to consider, but declined in the end.

My trip to Gulu has been postponed until tomorrow morning. I will only be there one night, and it's somewhat more dangerous than Kampala, but I am very determined to go, and am going with people and staying in someone's home, so I am confident I will be safe.

I am having the most amazing experience. I can harldly imagine going through my entire life not having this experience, coming to love people here as friends instead of images on a TV screen. I don't think I would have been the same person.

It is overwheling seeing such need, but I am reminded by many wise men who've pointed out that you build a house brick by brick. I have a brick, or maybe two or three to contribute - I don't need to be the ONE who BUILT THE HOUSE. I think that's just ego. We can all simply add our brick in whatever way we may feel called.

I am feeling sad as I approach the end of my trip. I have really falled in love here - this is a place I will certainly be returning to. The people here already feel like family in a way, I have such an affection for the friends I have made and I feel really accepted and loved as well.

But I miss you all terribly as well. Thank you to those of you who are reading and posting comments. It makes me feel like my community is here with me.