Home Sweet Home

Ogamba Chi! (What’s up!)

The past week has been super busy, but super awesome. We have gone on a number of different site visits after our morning Luganda lessons. I have enjoyed the diverse structure of the days here. Wednesday, we went to the Uganda Museum where we learned about the history of traditional Ugandan culture before European colonialism. We also went to the Kabaka’s (king’s) main palace where parliament holds their meetings. There, we learned about the king of Buganda and how the ethnic groups and 56 clans are represented within the region. My family is part of the Mamba clan, which is represented by a “land fish”. If you are in the Mamba clan, you cannot eat land fish or else you will be cursed and get a skin disease. Needless to say, I am not eating land fish. After this, we went to the chambers on Menga hill in Kampala where Idi Amin tortured his opposition parties. I didn’t know much about Idi Amin until then and I was just blown away by his rule of terror. I was told to watch The Last King of Scotland for a very visual image of his rule, maybe you’ve seen it.  It was a very strange feeling to be standing in the small concrete building where thousands of people were tortured to death not even 20 years ago.

Today, we went to one of the slums in Kampala. We split up and got tours from CODEFO (Community Development Foundation) members. We were able to talk to a few entrepreneurs from this slum and ask them questions about their small business and how CODEFO could or is helping them. The group that interested me most was a youth group that sells bath sponges. We got to see how they make them out of the pod of a plant and sew it to a wash cloth. They are able to make a couple hundred of these sponges in a day and there is a high demand for them, but their problem is transportation. They do not legally own the building where they make the sponges and therefore CODEFO cannot financially support their business. They were asking us for advice, which I think surprised all of us a little. We are finding ourselves more and more in a position of power because of our level of education here and it takes me aback every time.

My experience in the slum was definitely the most powerful one yet. The narrow streets are dusty and muddy and covered in garbage. There is dirty water running through small, trash-filled canals between the very tightly packed, makeshift houses. The whole place smells of sewage, beer and smoke from the burning trash. As we walked through the narrow passages, herds of children trailed behind us, holding our Muzungu hands. It was very hard for me to see the malnourished kids and way all of these people are living and walk away knowing how privileged I am in contrast. However, CODEFO gave me a bit of hope. The members of the organization grew up in this slum and were lucky enough to have gotten the chance to go to school and now are there helping to develop the slum. Their main project is building a school and library for the children. The more and more I learn about third world development strategies, the more I realize that education is so important to developing nations. It also helped to put my homestay’s economic situation in perspective. I am still unsure of where my home in Namungoona lies on the socioeconomic scale of Uganda, but I have a much clearer idea after today.  It’s interesting for me, as a community development major, to see first-hand the development problems in Uganda.  It has allowed me to think much more critically and realistically about the complexity of solutions to problems in public health, human rights, family plan management, politics, microeconomics, agriculture etc. The overpopulation is the root cause for most of the problems and that is also visible to me every moment of every day here. Never in my life have I seen so many people in such a small area. Uganda’s population is around 65 million and they’re mostly concentrated in the large cities, like Kampala. Even though it was very hard to take in what I saw today in this community, it was such an eye-opening experience for me and has made a huge imprint on my life.

As for my home life, I am getting much more comfortable with my family and lifestyle. One thing I have found interesting is how much TV is consumed in Uganda. My family watches a couple different soaps religiously. They’re all dubbed in English and then intermittently dubbed over again in Luganda. Terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE television, yet so entertaining. My family has finally learned that I cannot eat the mound of food they give me for every meal and have started feeding me a little less. Thank god!  

I have learned through trial and error that I have to wake up at 5:30 every morning in order to get on my first taxi at 6:30. Jake and I take three taxis on the way to school with some walking in between and usually get to school at 7:30. The taxis are not like the yellow, NYC cabs. They’re large, white vans that should seat only 11, but usually seat between 16 and 20 passengers. Jake and I often jump in the front seat together when it’s available because it makes it feel like a roller coaster ride. To me, it feels like I’m watching a screen in front of me and that we can’t ACTUALLY hit anyone darting across the street or weaving through the traffic on his boda boda… when in reality we totally could. But, even with such massive amounts of chaos on the roads, the taxi drivers are extremely good at maneuvering their way through with the ease of a carnival ride. Don’t worry, Mom!

To our surprise, we recently discovered a PIZZA place near our resource center. Today, we ordered 7 pizzas for the group and it was a great success and start to our weekend. We’re all pretty sick of matooke at this point, so any American food is much appreciated. Tomorrow night, we decided to stay at a hotel in the city so we can experience a night on the town without worrying about getting home late. After all, we are all still just college students!

Suli Bulungi! (goodnight!)