Rural Homestay

So, I am finally back in civilization after our rural excursion to the East. We left on Sunday and stayed in Mbale for a night, and I really liked the feel of the city, it was smaller and sleepier than Kampala. I walked around with my friend Abby and got ice cream and as we were sitting on the sidewalk when this guy came and deposited his baby in our lap… I was a little concerned that we weren’t going to see him again but I think he just figured that we would like to play for a little while. We spent the next two nights up in the mountains at a place called the Crow’s Nest, which is a sort of camp place build by the Peace Corps. It was gorgeous, and we all stayed in little cabins and I kind of wanted to stay there forever. We went hiking down to the Sipi waterfalls, and we did some pretty intense rock climbing around and INTO the falls, which was one of the most amazing experiences. The waterfall is HUGE so it was really painful to be pelted by the water while simultaneously gripping slippery mossy rocks and trying to climb through…but it was really cool. And wet. The next day there was another hike to more waterfalls, and everyone had to run back to the camp rather than take the van because they didn’t want to get the van wet, which was pretty fun. Dinner was really shitty the first night, and after that the foot drastically improved—for breakfast we had PANCAKES which was amazing, and for dinner we had garlic bread, guacamole, and some other really great things. (As a sidenote, we all spend about 95% of the time talking about the foods that we miss and can’t wait to have when we get home and how we will all consequentially become obese). I was in a group that went to interview a village community that has been displaced by the cattle raiders from Karamojo district. The cattle raiders have been a huge issue, because they believe that they basically have the right to whatever cattle they find and so they go to other villages and steal the cattle and burn the houses and rape the women… scary stuff. They are the reason why we are not allowed to stay in the Northeast of the country.
After our little stay at “camp,” our rural homestays began. We were all matched with partners from the group, but besides that we were isolated in our own rural village. I was with Jesse, a guy on the trip, and we were in a village called Bunyunyke, which is 3 kilometers from the Kenyan border (to which I really wanted to go but other people lacked my motivation). The basic living situation is family compounds. My family had a compound consisting of several sleeping huts, the cooking hut, the goat pen, and rabbit house, etc, and the compounds of male family members were connected and shared resources, so my host dad’s brothers lived right next door and the women cooked together and the kids ran around quasi-naked together. Jesse and I had our own hut, which was apparently built just for us (swanky). It was pretty well outfitted, with mattress pads and mosquito nets. The structure itself is made of circular mud walls, a tin door, and a grass roof. Pretty much beginning with the first moment, lots of awkwardness ensued, seeing that the family spoke very little English, and also because Jesse and I were treated like royalty which makes me very uncomfortable.

Things about the homestay that were cool:
We could to take part in a lot of the everyday chores—rather, I did, and not so much Jesse (as I will explain). The first morning they had us “dig,” or hoe the ground to plant cassava. Digging is how most of the families in the area make a living. We planted groundnuts, and slashed with machetes. I “cooked,” or did whatever they asked me to do like shell eggs, cut meat, stir vegetables on the “stove,” which is 3 rocks with a fire in the middle and a pot balanced on top. Why they do all the cooking inside is a mystery to me—I have never inhaled so much smoke in my life. I also washed dishes and pumped water from the boar hole. This reaffirmed my lack of strength when I could not even carry one full jerry can of water, so my host mom carried mine IN ADDITION to hers. Its amazing how even the “simplest” of things can become very complicated when water must be pumped and carried, and you don’t have basic things like matches or soap (these families have very, very little money). I mention that Jesse did not do as much because gender inequalities are very pronounced in Uganda, especially in rural areas. Women do all the chores and most of the digging while men spend much of the day drinking and sitting around and expecting meals cooked for them. So, they would have me come help with lunch while someone would fetch a mat for Jesse to lie in the shade. Sounds about right.
Also, while I am not the type of person that swoons over hoards of little kids, we got to play some football and Jesse is very good with them and they liked to sing songs together which was pretty cute. There were also gazillions of animals around, like goats, cows, pigs, piglets (!), chickens, dogs, rabbits, etc, so always something to play with.
Every night for several hours, we went into town with our host dad and went to a large hut that is sort of like the local bar. Everyone sits around and drinks marwa, which is like warm millet beer with chunks of…stuff in it. It is drunk from a large communal pot and everyone has his own “tube,” or hollow stick, with which to drink. It’s almost exclusively a male pastime but I suppose I got special permission being a guest. There is another popular drink made from maize and molasses and is like vodka times a thousand—I think it burned off my esophagus. You can literally smell it when people are drinking it across the street. But they absolutely down it.
Also, the stars were unbelievable. I have never, ever seen them so bright. It was like being in a planetarium, and I could even see the milky way. Brushing my teeth outside at night was probably one of my favorite things. Using the pit latrine and watching all the bugs crawl out of it was not. The bugs in general were a bit intimidating—my first night I rolled over and felt a squish, which turned about to be a gigantic cricket that had been sharing my bed. Fun.

Things about the homestay that were not so cool:
During said homestay, we were supposed to be doing a bunch of research and organizing interviews and focus groups, which is very hard when your family is having you do lots of stuff and no one can communicate with you in English. Jesse and I did research some health care and went to the local clinic and a pharmacy and a traditional healer, but I wish we had been able to do a lot more.
The most upsetting thing about the homestay was the fact that they kept asking us for money. Yes, we are Americans, and they are quite poor, but SIT gives them a lot of money to host us, as I found out, and we also bought them a goat (!) and some other things. Yet my host mother actually cornered me a few times in my hut to ask for money without really explaining why, and she would ask me for things every chance she got and tried to convince me to take her husband back to America so he could get a job (no joke). The father also kept taking us out but then expected Jess or me to pay for things. This all culminated during the last night, when I really wanted to go to bed, and just as I was, ALL the family members piled into our little hut, the one girl was asking for homework help and the father took his dinner. I politely asked them to leave several times but they did not understand. I think they thought Jesse and I were together and thus I could not go to sleep without him. So I dragged Jesse inside, and then one of the daughters got up and gave an apparently prepared speech about how poor they were and how they needed us to give them money, etc etc. At this point I was very fed up, and explained to them that they were getting a great deal of money to have us here, and we did want to help them which is why we had gotten them a goat. And then they finally shut up. Sigh. I thought that maybe all the families were like this, but it turns out no one else’s were, but we talked to our directors about it and they are going to take care of it. So, that kind of tainted the experience, but I’m glad we got to do a lot of the other stuff we did.

Our last day on the excursion, we went to the home of one of our teachers because it is in the area. They have a REALLY nice compound, and our teachers had arranged a DJ and a dance and a cash bar. So we all got to dance and get our directors tipsy, which is always a good time.

I was never so happy to get back to Kampala, however, and I have a newfound appreciated for the privacy I get in my homestay here as well as the familiarity of the city even though it is still crazy and overwhelming. While my little host sister is still annoying at times, we have been “doing homework” together which is cute, I just have to keep an eye on her because if I turn my back for a second she goes through all my stuff. And Irene, the housemaid, is great and missed me a lot. And I have been able to have some really great conversations with my host mom, talking about gender inequalities in Uganda, and HIV/AIDS, and a lot of other stuff that has been provoked by my rural excursion. It’s unfortunate that now that I feel we are finally getting to know each other, I am leaving in less than a week.

That reminds me—I am leaving in less than a week! This is the last week in Kampala before we begin our practicum, or internship/research period. We have this week to finalize plans, write 2 major papers, say bye to our families, and do everything else we want to. Quite overwhelming, to say the least. And it’s a very strange feeling to not know where I am going to be living or what I will be doing even a week from right now. This is very typical for Uganda, but strange for me.

In other news, I went shopping for kangas today, which are these fabric wraps that women wear around the house or while doing chores or use as towels, etc. And I found one with a giant picture of Obama’s face. Perfect. In other interesting news, going a little bit back in time, they day before the excursion was our free day, so some of us went to this nice hotel on top of one of the hills in the city to use the pool. Most of my friends brought their host brothers to swim as well. Ariela’s younger brother insisted that he knew how to swim… which was not really the case. So he went in the deep end and promptly swallowed a bunch of water and started choking and couldn’t breathe… Ariela was like “Jamie!!!” So on autopilot I leapt out the pool and Heimlich-maneuvered the kid and he threw up all the pool water, which was quite a relief. But what it made me think about was how I learned how to do the Heimlich and CPR and even save people out of a pool… but besides the Heimlich, which does seem kind of like common sense, I don’t really remember the rest of it, and now I really feel like I should take a refresher course because you never know when you’re going to need to use that stuff.