On Sunday, we decided to go visit Peter’s family. He was
feeling a bit homesick and I am always up for an adventure, so we headed to the
village of Buwaga. Buwaga is about 66 kilometers from Mukono, which required us
to take a taxi and motorcycle to reach. I wish I could describe the taxi
experience for you, but words just don’t do it justice. One of the things that
I did notice was that there are many “rest” areas in which many people engulf
the taxi and offer snacks. Now when I say “engulf” I mean that they push open
all of the windows and shove snacks and drinks through them in front of your
face. At one point, I tried to keep the window shut and a boy pushed it open.
The taxi stops literally every few kilometers at what is called a stage. The
passengers can ask the taxi to stop at any time, which makes more room in the
taxi, but also causes the conductor (the person who closes/opens the door and
takes the money) to hunt for more passengers by stopping at other stages and
shouting the location from the window. I actually fell asleep in the taxi and
was awakened suddenly by Peter that we needed to move to another taxi. Often
the taxi drivers shift people, especially if they are not going further to another
town. So, they find a taxi that is going to that particular location. Finally,
after about two hours, we reached the main center, Busembatia. At that point,
we met up with Peter’s brother, Wilson and his wife, who helped us to get a
motorcycle to go to the village. One of the traditions here is to offer food,
whether you are hungry or not. So, of course, Peter ordered my favorite soda
and snack. I love the apple soda here called Mirinda and mendazi. After our
snacks, we headed to the village. I wish I would’ve taken a picture of all
three of us on a motorcycle (Wilson, Peter, and I), but I forgot.
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| sodas and mendazis |
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| Busembatia |
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| The Post Office |
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| Tracy - Simon Peter's niece |
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| rest area |
By the time we had reached Peter’s family, I had received
many, many stares and shouts. Kids react two ways to a muzungu (white
person/foreigner). They either yell and scream, “muzungu” or they run away
crying. If they yell at you, you need to wave to them and they will be really,
really excited.
I learned many, many things in the village.
1.
Nudity is common, but it is not offensive. It is
common to see mothers nursing their babies in pubic and little kids running
around without or very dirty clothes. I also can't get used ot the no shoes thing, but most children run around barefoot. One of my friends suggested it was not nudity, but
poverty. I would agree.
2. Not many people in the village speak English and there is
a huge language barrier problem.
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| Peter and some beautiful ladies in the village. |
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| Me, Peter's mother, and her grandchild |
3. There are many, many crops grown in the village including simsim, corn, rice, coffee, mangoes, oranges, sorghum, etc.
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| sesame (simsim) |
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| drying sesame |
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| sesame |
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| rice!! |
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| rice |
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| sorghum |
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| Enjoying a mango the Ugandan way! |
4. People are very, very curious about me and always want their pictures taken.
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| Baby carrying a baby. |
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| This baby cried and ran away until another girl captured him. |
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| Do you know why this baby has a protruding stomach? |
5. Water is essential. This town has many boreholes, which is an incredible resource. There is no piped water in this area, so people (in most cases children) walk to get water. We walked to the borehole from Peter's parent's house and I think it was about a half mile or so, which again is VERY close!
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| Pumping the water |
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| This water is clean, although I would still boil. |
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| Rachel - one of Simon Peter's cousins |
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| Many children were gathered around. |
6. There is Universal Primary Education (UPE) here, but it is very, very poor. We stopped and took pics at the local school where Peter attended. You will notice there are missing seats on the benches and very primitive facilities. They do, however, have a water tank, which was donated by a local religious organization. This is essential because it collects the rainwater from the room and supplies the school so that children don't have to waste time going to get water.
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| Buwaga Primary School |
7. Electricity can be found in the village. Apparently it came about two years ago to this area, but you have to independently hook up your own house. Peter's family does not have electricity yet, but the wiring in the house is done. The power grid here is very, very unstable and electricity goes often at least a few times a day. We have a generator on campus, but many times they only run a generator for one side of the campus where most of the classrooms and offices are located. I live on the other side, so I often lose power around 8 or 9 a.m. and then it returns in the evening.
8. Some people still believe that more than one wife is a symbol of power and prestige. While walking on Peter's family's land, it started raining, so we ran into a someone hut who was renting on the land. The man had two wives and many, many children. The children were very curious of me and trying peeking into the storage hut where we were taking shelter. The parents live in the main house (yes, both wives).
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| land |
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| parent's house |
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| crops are the main source of income here |
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| Children stay in these smaller huts. |
I am constantly amazed at how the children are always alone here. They
really take care of each other because there are too many children for
the parents to care for, so the younger siblings help out. There are an
average of nearly eight children per family in Uganda, so they need a
lot of help. I also read a statistic that 1 out of 7 children die before
the age of 5 - which is about 14%. That figure shocked me and made
me realize the fragility of life here in Uganda.
I really enjoyed my visit to the village and all of the lessons learned. I hope you enjoyed it too!
