Prosperous Day

Today was an “I love my life” day! This world is absolutely amazing to me! The day began as a fairly regular day. I went to school and did my reading period. The P1 class and I drew rainbows while we read, “A Rainbow for Dinner.”

At lunch, Koloba Steven’s wife, Beth, delivered potatoes and chapatti for us Mzungus. It was a welcome treat after weeks, and many weeks to come, of posho, beans, and cabbage for lunch.

I read to P4 and P7 today as well. The students must think I’m crazy because I use a lot of silly animation while reading. They seem to like it and are very engaged in the stories. We discussed new vocabulary words, morals or lessons learned, and what a prologue is. I am excited to continue reading aloud to the students. I believe they will benefit greatly from hearing English and learning to love books.

In the afternoon, I joined the choir in preparing for their performance this weekend at the Bupoto Clinic opening. Teacher Nelson had them out in the field practicing a traditional dance to the beating drums. I joined in! The students LOVE it when we participate. Part of the dance was milking a cow. As you can imagine, I have no idea how to milk a cow!

After school we started our clubs. I am in charge of the writing club. This is exciting and hopefully we’ll be able to write a school newsletter. The concept of clubs is new to the students so pretty much the entire school wants to join the club. We’ll see how it turns out…

After clubs, at about 5:00 pm, Nandala Caroline invited me to her home. She said, “Teacher Charlee, you are visiting today, yes?” I thought, why not and asked, “How far do you live?” She replied, “I live near far.”

Now, let me tell you for a second about near and far. Distance seems irrelevant to these people. They walk miles and miles, or should I say kilometers and kilometers, to get places. And their walk is not just on the sidewalk. Only a few roads, which are dusty or muddy depending on the season, exist. Alternatively, paths that are like hiking trails sprawl up the mountains and around the valleys like a web. The people know the way around these paths without any signs to mark them. To me, near means around the corner, which I realize is another relative term. But here, near means around the MOUNTAIN! Far is up and around the mountain and over the hills into a valley past the last two mountains and valleys.

So I went to Caroline’s house. We climbed and climbed and climbed and when we arrived at an opening in the path, she said, “We are near,” and pointed to a home across the valley another half mile away. We arrived at 6:15. I LOVE hiking around through the trails here. The reason I love going on the trails is because I get to see the life here. The trails cross right onto people’s porches and everyone is out. I see mostly women who are working preparing meals and men who are carrying things on their heads. Children are EVERYWHERE! Seriously, everywhere. I can’t even tell you how wonderful and beautiful it is to see these children all over the place.

I quickly learned that Mzungus are “most welcome.” Anywhere I go people are super excited to see me. They thank me so much for coming to their village and everyone invites me to their home. When I greet them in Lagisu, the local language, they brighten up. This behavior is especially true amongst the adults and more particularly by elderly women. Everyone is grateful for my work and for coming to Uganda. I feel quite humbled by it. I wish the entire world could be so kind and welcoming to strangers and neighbors alike.

So we finally made it to Caroline’s place after I thought I was going to die hiking up the mountain. Thank goodness I had four guides from school to show me the way. I’m proud to say I kept up with them. When we arrived, all the neighbors came to see me and Caroline’s mother welcomed me. “You are most welcome,” is their formal greeting.

I sat in their living room for a few minutes and chatted with Caroline’s mother who spoke beautiful English. Then, after speaking in Lugisu with her children she turned to me and said, “Caroline told me you would like to milk a cow.”

Huh??!?!? Are you serious??? I didn’t tell her that, but maybe she got that while we were dancing.

So the next thing I know, I have udders in my hands! Hahahahahahahahaha! I milked a cow!!

The entire family was there to enjoy the moment. One of the babies was only a week old! He was SO precious, but it was kind of weird when his mother pulled out her breast in the middle of a conversation with me and began to feed him. Yeah, that’s normal!!!

The people are obsessed with cameras. The nicest thing I can do for a family is take their picture, well besides give them money I suppose. I let one of them take my picture as I milked the cow and it was the most exciting thing she’s probably ever done. After that, we took probably 50 more pictures of everything from the goat to the neighbor boys.

The sun sets around 7 pm here so I could not stay long. As I left, they gave me a hen. What in the world am I going to do with it, I don’t know! But I took it graciously.

We continued on to Obotsi Justine’s home. I spoke with her mother and her uncle told me all about the banana plantation and English tomatoes they planted. I learned about yakayam and they gave me a piece. It is a potato-like root that is sweet. The stay there was much less exciting for me and far more brief, but I received another chicken!

After that we went to Kaloba Kevin and Christine’s place. By then, it was getting dark so I literally sat down for two minutes then we left. But of course, I received two more chickens – one from each student.

We ran down the mountain, literally ran. The mountain is called Bumayako and the village I went to is called Nitatsayas. I prayed every step of the way that I would not break an ankle or any bone for that matter. As the path flattened, one of the girls turned to me and said, “You do not walk like other Mzungus.” She went on to explain that I like to walk fast, stay near the front, and keep up with the locals. I took that as a compliment!

I returned home with 3 hens and my very own cock. Hahaha! I love it. I milked a cow and got my own chickens today! Seriously, this life is incredible!