Our Village

Wairaka B

Issue IV // October 2022

We live in a village called Wairaka B (or it may be Wairaka A, I'm not exactly sure where one ends and the next one starts), next to a small town called Bugembe, just outside of a medium town called Jinja, which is a few hours drive away from the crazy bustling capital city of Kampala. Our home is just up the street from the beautiful and lush YWAM Hopeland base, and our landlord is actually a YWAMer. We're situated at the bottom of Mwiri Hill. When the fog starts to settle around the hill in the evening and the moon is dark, the lights of the school perched at the top of the hill look like a floating city. Other times, the morning fog completely blankets the school, and the hill looks very mysterious. Our friend was a former pupil there, and that is how we found out that black leopards live in this area, since he survived a late evening encounter with one on the school football field. I have yet to see any of those wild cats myself, but I run into monkeys, goats, cows, chickens, and rabbits every day as they live and graze around our home. I've also often seen chameleons, snakes, hedgehogs, a huge variety of insects and spiders, and of course the bats and mosquitos that fill the skies every evening.

Coming from a medium/big- sized American city, there's been a few adjustments in this village life. The biggest challenge has been our electricity. It seems that as the village population grows, the electricians just continue to add us all onto one transformer, a big happy family that blacks out usually once a month. As I write this blog, I'm keeping a close eye on my phone's battery percentage. It's currently at seven percent, and we're on day 5 without any power in this house, actually in this entire area. From my previous visits to Uganda, and specifically to Wairaka, I thought I was prepared for it. But it turns out that the solar charger battery pack I found on Amazon takes at least one week of sunshine to reach a full charge - this is far from helpful. Also, I didn't consider the appliances. I'm so thankful that our electric stove/ oven also has gas capabilities. Our fridge, unfortunately, does not. The door is now standing open, the inside cleaned out, to prevent the growth of mold that happened last time, when the power was out for just 4 days. I heard a rumor that we could get electricity back today, and I'm excitedly flipping the switch every few hours to check. So far, nothing.

Another adjustment has been transportation. While there is an element of freedom with using boda bodas, it's not always an ideal method of travel (100cc motorcycle taxis, which I've seen carrying up to 6 people at one time, or a full couch set, or packed with so much building material that the driver isn't even sitting in the seat and is instead leaning all the way up to pressing against the handlebars as he navigates the potholes and highways without a helmet). Another option is the taxi vans - "licensed to carry 14 passengers" is emblazoned on the passenger side door, while I have counted up to 24 people squeezed in with me, sometimes as I hold their child or their chicken on my lap for the duration of the journey. There is a convenience of not having to navigate the sometimes wild roads, remembering to drive on the left side of the street, or finding parking outside of the market where every available spot is suddenly filled with five bodas that jump in ahead of you, sometimes they appear from driving on the sidewalk or riding on the wrong side of the road with their turn signals flashing like emergency lights. In those cases, it seems easier not to have a car. But then come the rains.

Once a week, I take a 50 minute boda ride down the highway, over the bridge, and up the Prayer Mountain to volunteer as a midwife-in-training. Generally, I enjoy the traveling views overlooking the Nile River and Lake Victoria as we climb up the very bumpy dirt road to the hospital, as long as no sugar cane trucks or other vehicles pass and leave behind a huge cloud of dust and exhaust to settle in my lungs. However, this is in dry weather. When rainy season hits, it's a completely different world. The dust gives way to a mud pit, or worse, a pond or a small river where the road is supposed to be. In less than 30 minutes, I've watched a dry road be overtaken by rainwater, strong enough to collapse and wash away a small wooden stall that sold illegally obtained petrol in glass Coca-Cola bottles by the roadside. And when that rain finds you on the way, you move. My boda driver (and our family friend) likes to brave the usual rain and make it home quickly, as do I. But the flood rains are a different story. When Ronald says we have to pull over, I know it's about to get serious. Just a few weeks ago, we tried to outrun the rain. Another midwife joined us on the boda as we were coming down from the mountain. We saw the dark gray/ purple storm clouds moving towards us across the valley, with a thick sheet of rain drenching everything in its path. The wind was blowing the matoke (plantain) trees sideways, and the bougainvillea flowers were scattering across the thatched roofs of the mud brick huts. And we thought we would win. As the first painful stings of those heavy raindrops hit my arms, the other midwife wisely suggested we seek shelter. We had just passed the prison, and were heading towards the open farmlands of sugar cane, maize, and cassava roots. There was no shelter ahead, and rain wall was almost here. We doubled back to the prison, and stood on the patio of a small storage shack with a police officer and two prisoners. As quickly as they hit, the rain drops suddenly stopped, and it seemed the winds had shifted direction. The three of us jumped back on the boda and crossed the open fields. Just as we reached the other side, the ominous sounds of heavy drops on tin roofs began. We tried to cross the growing stream to take shelter at a house, but a lady shooed us back and told us to cross where it wasn't so wide and fast yet. We drove back a short distance, and ran up the steps of a mosque. Within two minutes, 10 other bodas had joined us and people ran all around to escape the storm. The wind again pushed the clouds away and the rain slowed. This time, we didn't wait for it to stop. We had already lost half an hour while waiting out the storm. After another five minutes of driving, we had finally reached the paved highway. I thought we would be home free since we've now left the mud. But the storm had other ideas. This time it returned with greater vengeance. A crowd built up around us as we stood under the cover of a shop at the trading center. We watched cars and trucks barrel through large puddles as their windshield wipers worked to make the path ahead visible. The flooding was a common occurrence here, and I watched the water cover the whole ground in front of the raised storefront, reaching up to the planks that people had set out to navigate these inevitable floods. After another long wait, we left the trading center and reached the Nile River bridge that was also covered in water, the drains too small to properly remove the water. School children on their way home had removed their shoes, hiked up pants and skirts, and waded through the brown waters, as they dodged drivers that were trying to ease their bodas across. Eventually, we reached home, and I dreamed of the hot showers in America as I shivered in soaking wet clothes, socks, and shoes.

The following week, the rains caught us on the way home again. This time, we entered a dwelling and stayed put until we knew it was clear. An old man sitting on a mat welcomed us into his three-walled dwelling, with a sheet to make up the forth wall. He motioned for us and the other three individuals seeking shelter to take a seat on the benches, as he ate a late lunch on the floor mat. Another old man escaping the rain engaged me in a limited conversation as I tried to use all of my known Luganda and Lusoga. Then I went silent as the conversation went past my language knowledge, and no one else in the building knew much English, including my boda driver (we mostly communicate with gestures, single words in English or Lusoga, and using my husband -they were friends from childhood- as a translator). After some time, another lady joined our little crew. I was happy to hear her greet me in prefect English, and I got to resume in the conversations. People always like to compare and contrast, and she joined in asking me how I find life here in Uganda, and what it was like in America. After a very pleasant conversation, with pauses to translate to the other men who were also interested in what we were taking about, the rains finally finished and we all parted ways.

As a white person in a country full of blacks, I'm usually a novelty, especially in the more rural areas (actually though, I'm a very light tan or dark cream surrounded by darker browns). They call me Muzungu - which I've been told means everything from white person, light skinned, traveler, explorer, westerner, etc. to someone who is non-Bantu (so that is "not one of our people"). Interestingly enough, they call most mixed people here Muzungu also, as well as lighter brown-skinned Africans (such as many Ethiopians, North Africans, South Africans, and Tanzanians); and most people who would call themselves "black" in America would be called "white" in Uganda. When I hear an excited "Muzungu bye-bye!" coming from the bright face of a young child, I respond with a smile, wave, and greeting. But oftentimes, "Muzungu" is said in a deeper voice by a young or old man, followed by "marry me... I love you... take me to America/ Europe.... come here" or they tell my husband to sell me to them. All of this is either ignored, or I respond with some choice Luganda phrases to tell them to back off. Hearing the local vernacular coming from me is usually enough of a surprise to shut up their mouths.

In our small community though, our neighbors are getting very used to me, and I enjoy our interactions. I get called many things here, but my favorite name is from our neighborhood children two houses down. "Mugole, mjabale!" (Newlywed, well done!) The older ones will run to grab the youngest girl, not yet two years old, and they pick her up so she can wave her whole arm with excitement as she joins in shouting a greeting of "Mugole!" in her tiny voice. We pass their door daily, and we never get tired of exchanging greetings with this sweet crew. On a side note, they have also agreed to the responsibility of taking care of the milk that another neighbor brings us from his cow, and holding it for us until we return from morning devotions at the YWAM base. My skin may not look like most people here, but many have accepted me as a Musoga (a member of the Busoga tribe, thanks to my marriage to a Musoga man), and they treat me as a part of the community. And this community takes care of each other. They cannot believe when I tell them that I once lived in a condo for three years, and I saw my next door neighbor less than five times, even though we shared a wall. A community here does not just mean we live in the same vicinity, it means that when the dear grandmother (Jaja) of those little children two houses down, who always gave us a big smile as she lay on her mat in the shade for an afternoon nap, passed away, the neighborhood pitched in for funeral costs, and everyone gathered at the home to pay respects. Actually, it was almost a week- long affair as family and friends gathered from around the country to honor their Jaja. Community also means that when two men are gunned down as their mobile money business is robbed, the entire community heard the late night wails of a new widow and spent the next days and weeks on high alert, warning one another and looking out for each other as a community security watch. Churches come together to support the widows and orphans, they start community gardens and savings clubs, and you can't walk down a street without seeing at least one person you know and stop to exchange greetings. There is a different style to life here, a different pace, a different value; and I'm slowly finding my place.