Slip Slidin'

Friday, September 7th to Sunday, September 9th
Pull up a cozy chair, grab a cup of warm coffee or tea, whichever you prefer, and print this baby out, because it will be a long one. I had a very interesting and rather trying time this weekend as we stayed in the village area of Fort Portal. We spent time with the people of the Toro tribe.

Caitlin from Colorado, Sarah from Oregon, Josephats, and I all boarded the bus for the 5 hour bus ride to Fort Portal. When we arrived it was raining hard and his friend met us with a truck. There were three men who came to pick us up. One of them was Josephats’ friend and the other two were Josephats’ friend’s friends (are you confused yet?). They were named Apuuli, Atennyi, and Atoki.

The truck that we used was meant for two passengers. The men were very considerate and let all three of us girls squish together in the passenger seat of the truck while Josephats and two of the other guys held a tarp over themselves in the bed of the truck. Caitlin was sitting beside the driver with the stick shift between her legs, which was very awkward; especially because she was wearing a skirt. In the rural areas women are only allowed to wear skirts because the elderly get very upset if girls wear ‘trousers.’ Sarah sat in the middle and was quite comfortable. I, on the other hand, was squished with my bum against the door as I faced Sarah. I was twisted in an awkward position so that my back started hurting and my right side started to fall asleep. At first I thought it would be a short trip, but I quickly realized it wouldn’t be. The driver said that we would be taking the longer route because the shorter one would be slippery from mud. I naturally was a bit perturbed by this. But as we seemed to be nearing the villages, Josephats said that he lost his wallet, so we turned around and looked on the sides of the road to see if it fell out of his pocket as he sat on the edge of the truck. Unfortunately, we did not find it. They asked people they passed if they saw it. I finally had to shift my position and so I sat on the edge of the seat with my face close to the windshield, which was much more comfortable.

An hour and a half after we had gotten into the truck, we arrived at the small red dirt roads that wind through the villages. The road was sooo slippery! We were fishtailing all over the road and a few times we got stuck in ruts and the guys pulled us out. One of the times we got stuck we were pulled out by a local tractor. As we drove those super slippery roads, I clung tightly to the dashboard and prayed to God. On one hand I was terrified, but on the other, I could see that the driver was very skilled at driving the road, so I trusted him. When I relaxed, I was actually able to enjoy it and feel like I was on a joy ride while four-wheeling.

We finally arrived at the home after 7 hours of travel. Before the family came out we were briefed on how to greet them. So we had to learn how to carry on a short conversation in about five minutes. We felt a little bit overwhelmed. The tribe that we stayed at used ‘petty’ names for everyone. My nickname was Akiki and the other two girls with me were Amoti and Aboki. All of them started with ‘A’ and so it was really confusing trying to learn everyone’s petty names. Plus, there are only 11 petty names all together, so we would meet many people with the same petty names. Many of them sounded almost identical. So the family came out and we greeted the mother first who was 74 years old. Then her grandchildren came out and they all knelt onto their knees while we greeted them. They all spoke very softly, so I had to strain to hear them and understand their nicknames.

We conversed with the men who picked us up while the women cooked our supper. We did not eat until 10:30 pm. The meal we ate was difficult for us to eat. It was meat, two different types of sauces (one was egg plant and bean and the other was chicken sauce), matoke (the stuff that was like mashed potatoes, only it’s made out of bananas), chicken, beans, and aburo. Now aburo is what we like to describe as ‘a mound of poo in a basket.’ That is what it looks like. It is made of millet. It does not taste like much of anything, but its consistency was like play dough and when you bit into it, it was grainy like sand. It was communal, so we would pull of chunks of it with our hands and soak it in sauce so we could eat it easier. It is ironic that we found ourselves enjoying matoke the best of everything we ate because before, when we had eaten it at the restaurant, it was our least favorite and was difficult to swallow. We ate all of our meals there with our hands. I was not very good at it and I made a mess pretty much every time I ate. Also, my fingers are not very tough, so the hot food was rather painful on our fingers. I’m sure that they have tough fingers around here. Now, in Africa, it is insulting if a lot of food is left when you’re done, so we had to eat a lot! We probably ate as much as grown men and we were all three pretty small girls! And it wasn’t because we liked it.

During dinner we learned a few things about the meal that we ate. When guests come from outside the tribe and are given petty names, they have a ceremonial meal. The meal was ceremonial because the host made both matoke and aburo. Also when there is a guest, the household is supposed to kill a cock (which we call a rooster) for the meal. Then the guest is supposed to eat the gizzard of the cock. Thankfully, Josephats said he would represent us and he ate the gizzard for us. We were soooo grateful because when we saw him gnawing on it like it was difficult to chew, we knew we could not have eaten it. And if we would have tried, we probably would have lost our whole dinner. It was interesting because the whole meal, the women and children stayed out of sight and out of mind even though they were the ones who cooked. The only woman that would appear once in a while was Apuuli's mother who drifted in and out inconspicuously. Sometimes the lady would start talking to me in her langugage and I would just nod my head or say 'ego,' which meant ok or fine. What else was I supposed to say?

We went to bed late that night and woke up early (6:45 am) to the sound of the cock crowing over and over. We got up so that we could help with the planting. Unfortunately, it was too muddy and wet to plant because they did not have enough gum boats for everyone. So we waited around and watched Josephats wash his clothes and shoes that had gotten muddy while pulling the truck out of the ruts the night before. Finally, we had tea, which is what they do for breakfast. It is simply milk tea and bananas. The milk tea was our favorite part of any meal and was delicious.

We finally left at 10 am for our long day ahead. Fortunately, instead of being crunched into the front seat of the truck, all three of us girls were able to sit on benches in the bed of the truck and hang onto the railing on the edge. The sun was shining and warm and it was nice to be out in the air. The scenery was absolutely beautiful with tropical greenery everywhere. We got many stares as usual from people who walked or bicycled past us. First we saw many sights from atop hillsides. At one of the sites there were two dung beetles rolling a pile of dung, which thoroughly fascinated me. We ended up in one village in which the people had never seen white people before. Children appeared from every crevice of the place and gathered around, staring. When we drove away, they ran for the longest time behind the truck while we took their pictures. Apuuli explained that many of these children have never gone to school because they cannot afford the books and uniforms that are required. This is because a lot of them lose parents to HIV/AIDS. I realized how blessed I was to have free education.

Next, we wet hiking to see some waterfalls. The guide proudly showed us the stalactites and stalagmites and places where ancient rituals had taken place. We were hiking in a beautiful overgrown jungle. Its natural state had been preserved. Then we drove up the hill that had the palace. It was the palace of the youngest king in Uganda. The guard would not let us in, so that was a bummer.

Finally, we had a snack at like 4 pm because we were all starving. But African snacks are the equivalent of an American meal. We had chaps (kind of like sausage) and chips (fries). Two hours later we had a meal at Atoki’s house which was essentially the same as the night before except with different sauces and greens. There was also beef instead of chicken. Also, there was sugar cane for us to munch on after dinner. You chew on it until all of the juice comes out and all that is left is a bundle of fibers that you don’t swallow. It’s rather addicting. We visited many houses. At each of them it is custom that they give the guest something to eat or drink. We were already full from our ‘snack’ and dinner that we had a hard time with that. I felt like I would burst. I had to use the latrine after every house. =) it was humorous because at one of the houses the woman was playing the movie called, “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” If you haven’t seen it, you should. At each house that we visited, there were at least 6 to 8 children that greeted us as well. We ended up visiting maybe ten or more houses that day, which was better than the 25 that he had promised.

When we finally arrived at our host’s house, it was about 11 pm. We had to eat another meal and each of us almost puked in our mouths, not just because we weren’t enjoying the food, but because we had eaten so much during the day and our stomachs were complaining to us. It was one of the most torturous experiences I’ve ever had. I can tell you that it feels good to be ‘home’ at our guest house where we can decide when we want to stop eating without offending anyone. Anyway, during this meal I was finished eating and my plate was sitting on my lap. Atoki reaches toward the meat and spoons out a chunk and I knew it was coming my way. He dropped it into my plate and said, “We don’t like you to be idle.” So I picked it up and tried to eat it. It reminded me of the experience with goat meat because I couldn’t tear off a bite. I finally turned it over and started pealing meat off of the underside. It was chewy and rubbery. I didn’t know what it was, but I wasn’t going to ask. Unfortunately, the other girls were more curious than I was. They asked was and I was thinking, “I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know.” Finally, atoki said, “It’s cow stomach.” Before this point I was able to get the meat down without problems, although I was not enjoying it. But suddenly I could not swallow the last bite and I felt myself start to gag. The other girls looked at me with pity and Josephats looked at me as though he knew I wasn’t enjoying it. Finally, I devised a plan for ridding myself of this foreign object. I took it out of my mouth when no one was looking and wrapped it in the remaining part of the piece of meat (which wasn’t supposed to be eaten anyway). No one was the wiser. After dinner we each showed our 'strokes' which were our dance moves, to music playing on the radio. Atennyi was hilarious and kept dancing like the whole time. A couple of children came out of hiding and showed us their strokes as well. They were adorable. We gave our gifts to the host that night and went to bed exhausted.

The next morning we woke up early again so we could visit more families (all of these families are related to Apuuli). We had tea with his wealthy uncle. That was the same as before except with soft boiled eggs. We went to church which wasn’t too peculiar. There was a lot of singing and some preaching. There was offering. The music was acapella. It was all in the Toro language. We had to introduce ourselves to the congregation and Apuuli translated for us. We left early so that we could catch the bus in town in time. We had a small lunch of matoke and beans and tea before we left for town. We had to hurry because Apuuli said that we had to bring some other people with us to a clan meeting in town. We stopped for the people and we were surprised by the number we picked up! We ended up having 18 people riding in the bed of the truck with two or three people in the cab of the truck. And they were all related to Apuuli! Caitlin, Sarah, and I stood by the cab and sang songs to entertain ourselves and everyone else. We caught the bus in town and had a very long ride back to Kampala. All in all, it was a very interesting experience. We learned a lot about traditional African culture. They spoke a different dialect than the people in Buganda (which is the tribe our guest house is in). Consequently, we had to learn new greetings as well as many other new things. We enjoyed our time despite the food experiences. The people were very hospitable and gave us their very best. Caitlin, Sarah, and I all shared one room, which was completely unexpected. There was culture shock, but that is expected in practically any country.

Now I will say goodbye and talk to you later because this is sooo long. I hope I didn’t bore you to badly. =)
Leilani