To the Bush!

I am currently sitting in the restaurant/lounge of the White House Hotel in Kasese town. Kasese town is the largest town in Kasese district and therefore offers the most modern comforts. This hotel is also the second nicest hotel in Kasese town. My room is self contained (so I don’t need to use the shared bathroom at the end of the hall), I have a king sized bed all to myself, there not only is electricity, it has yet to go out since I’ve been here, and the internet café downstairs has flat screen monitors and something resembling fast internet. All these luxuries are afforded me for 20,000 Ugandan shillings a night, which works out to about 11.75 USD, and is well within my research stipend of 25000 UGS/day. This is a welcome break from my most recent lodgings in the village of Kyanzi (pronounced Chensey), outside of the small town of Bwera (locally known as Mpondwe) located on the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I have embarked upon my month long research project looking at the land conflict issues in Kasese between cultivators and pastoralists.
I am staying in the same village (and with the same family) were a few weeks earlier, I did my village stay. The family, and in fact the whole village has been very welcoming and has been assisting me in conducting my research in any way they can. On the first day of my research I had also come to Kasese town to meet with several officials and inform them of my presence and my research. The District Security Officer informed me that the people I was staying with was a “pre-capitalist society” and were therefore very welcoming, giving (since they had little concept of the market value of things, and of the principles of bargaining etc), and that he personally finds them “incredibly naïve”. Though I’m unsure how fair it is to label those in a “pre-capital state” which is, logically, the state that most of humanity has found itself in for most of history as naïve, nor am I entirely convinced that they are in fact a pre-capitalist society, I have found their warm, welcoming, and generous (despite how truly little they have to give). It is not, therefore the people, from which I am taking a welcome break. Rather the internet connection to the outside world, electricity, privacy, and flushing toilets are what I am appreciating about being here. Incidentally when checking in I foolishly only requested a toilet that flushes and so the first room they showed me had a toilet bowl, build right into the ground. Ugandans have really seemed to miss the point on this subject, while running water is certainly a perk, the nicest part about toilets is that you don’t have to squat down over a tiny hole in the ground, getting a full lower body workout while trying to do your business, all while trying not to fall over.
Since I am traveling alone, there is even less company away from the village, but I must admit that I am enjoying not having to spend ten minutes thinking up ways to phrase a question so that the locals will understand me, only to be answered with something completely irrelevant to what I’ve asked. I’m only just realizing how little interaction I’ve had with any native English speaker as I find myself speaking greedily long windedly both in emails and phone calls to anyone who will listen. Furthermore, while I miss the entire village of children that follows at my feet everywhere I go in the Kyanzi, I am also enjoying a break from this as well. Traveling alone has also forced me to socialize with random people. I am even writing this blog in between spurts of conversation with some Europeans here doing work with a local NGO. Also, my trip to Kasese has so far proved very useful in furthering my research. I have only arrived yesterday, and already I’ve interviewed a high ranking official in the district government who has had direct involvement in the land conflict issue, and three cultural leaders of the minority Banyabinde tribe of the district, who I admit I had until then neglected to consider in my work.
My solo adventure in western Uganda began Tuesday of last week. Two girls from the program who were also heading west and I, with all our luggage for the next month, trekked our way down to Bus Park (which is essentially the same thing as the Taxi Parks described an earlier posting, scaled up to accommodate old coach buses. As soon as we set foot in the park, we were swarmed by a herd of porters all grabbing at our bags, and yelling at us to come with them. We had to literally push them away from us while yelling that they stop touching our stuff. Finally we reached our bus, where we had to bargain them down from the Muzungu price, to what I suspect was probably a slightly lower Muzungu price that I had got when I had investigated the park the previous day. When I set foot on the bus, the first thing I noticed was there were pretty much no seats. I had foolishly assumed that they would only sell as many tickets as there were seats on the bus. Of course, like every other mode of transportation, they stuff it to capacity like a can of sardines (In the taxies meant to fit 14 they put a minimum of 17, on boda bodas meant to fit two I’ve seen 4, and in cars meant to carry 5 comfortably I’ve seen ten, including two people sitting in the drivers seat). I finally forced a rather rotund lady who was occupying two seats to move over and give me a seat. However, for the whole seven hour ride she absolutely refused to relinquish a solid half of my seat. She got a seat and a half while I got half a seat. However, I didn’t make too much fuss about it as I’m pretty sure that was as tight as she could squeeze, and it was certainly better than those who boarded after us who were forced to sit in on the floor in the aisle. The bus itself traveled down the poorly maintained Ugandan roads at incredibly unsafe speeds, threatening to overturn at every corner, stopping only to let vendors board in one town, walk through the aisle (over the people sitting there), trying to make a buck, before de-boarding at the next town.
After about five hours, one of the two girls, who were working at a forest reserve in Bushenye district, reached her stop. We said our goodbyes and she headed off into the unknown. As we approached our destination the bus finally began to clear out, and there was even enough space to take a seat next to my other travel companion, and discuss what a ridiculous day we had had so far. We pulled up to what appeared to be another roadside town, I believe we even got money ready to purchase a snack from one of the vendors we expected to board.
Suddenly there was a panic and a rush for the door. It seemed as though the locals were gathering around the bus and my first thought was that they were stealing bags from below. As I moved over to the other side of the bus to get a better look, I was pushed forward by a surge of people in the aisle. Through one of the open windows bellowed smoke coming from below the bus. In a panic, Sally (the girl I was traveling with) and I joined into the surge of people heading for the door. People were literally trampling over others trying to get off the bus. We made it out safely to find a crowd of people trying to put the mysterious flame under the bus out with jerry cans of water and dirt.
We were astounded to see the driver underneath the burning vehicle frantically putting himself in incredible danger frantically trying to extinguish the flame. I concluded that this bus must have been his only source of income and livelihood for him to have put his life so clearly in harms way to save it. There was suddenly a large boom as those under the bus scurried out all covered axel grease and oil. I have no idea what the explosion was and no one appeared harmed, but this was enough to convince us that we were simply not getting back on that bus. They finally got the glowing light under the bus under control, and as we were taking our bags out from underneath the conductor (man who collects money from people boarding and de-boarding) tried explaining to us that the problem was under control, the axel simply didn’t have enough grease. I peered over and saw the driver emptying a bottle of WD40 onto the problem area. The thought that a 1 liter can of WD40 couldn’t possibly make up for a total lack of axel grease on the rear wheel of a full sized coach bus, I steeled my previous conviction not to set foot back upon the bus.
Unfortunately, this left us with few options. We were totally stranded on the side of the road in the middle of Uganda, with no place to stay, and no where to go, it was about 6 o’clock and the sun was beginning to set. As I’ve said before, its advisable not to travel by road in Uganda after the sun has gone down. As we were bargaining with a bypassing banana truck to take us to the nearest large town where we hoped to either find lodging or a taxi that would take us the rest of the way to Bwera, a private hire driver approached us offering to take us the whole way. He was asking an exorbitantly high price, and naturally assuming he was taking advantage of some Bazungu we began to bargain down. Unfortunately, he would not budge on the price, apparently appreciating our predicament and seeing that we basically had no other options. Fortunately a few others from the bus that were heading to Bwera jumped in and helped bear the burden of the cost. Having the private hire was better than being stranded on the side of the road, but not much. Private hires in Uganda are unmarked, and the drivers carry no identification. We essentially got into a car with a perfect stranger, asking an exorbitant price, on faith that he would safely deliver us to Kampala, on top of this, there was no making it to Bwera before the sun set. It was not an appealing option, but like I said, we had no other choice. We’ve found that in Africa, you very often have to simply take what you are given (and be thankful for that). Sally later described her state on the ride as absolutely terrified. I’d call my own continually alert and suspicious. The fact that other Ugandans from the bus had also put their trust in this solution helped to ease my mind at the time, but in hindsight, they were in the same predicament as us, and so had as few options as we did. Fortunately, since it was getting late and we were expected in town, we received several calls from our AD’s, our friends in Kampala, and Solomon, our contact in the village. It was comforting to know that the driver knew that we were being expected, and that people were looking after us from both Kampala and our destination. Almost to my surprise we arrived in Bwera, at about 8:30, without any problems. We were greeted right in town by Solomon, a short (nearly all Bakonzo are short) but well carried man, with a big, welcoming hug. He arranged for a well known and trusted private hire to take us back to the village, and assured us that everyone was anxiously awaiting our presence, and had dinner ready and waiting for us. As the private hire pulled up to Samuel Matte’s (matte is short for Masereka, which means third born son, since I follow Bradley and Patrick in my own family, the village has also christened me Matte) modest brick home, all 9 children residing in the house (Samuel has 11 children but two are away at school and work) ran up yelling my name, taking my bags and offering hugs of welcome. I have never in my life so appreciated such a warm welcome, I felt like I had arrived back home (partly because home-stay families always speak of you in terms of family), and that the trials of the day had finally ended. As I had ate dinner by the now familiar lamp light, with all 10 children’s faces, they informed me that not much had changed since my last visit, but that the young ones had been missing me so much they had called my name in their sleep. Samuel walked in with a big smile, and greeted me with the lengthy traditional greeting. The greeting covers every aspect of your life. It begins by asking “how are you”, followed by “how is here” (referring to wherever you are at the moment), next you are asked “how is there” (referring to wherever you have just come from), then “how are they” (referring to those you have left, this question is often posed to me as “how are those sisters of yours” which always phases me for a second, they are sort of like my Ugandan family, but... not that literally), and finally “how is everyone from where you come?” (referring to your family and friends in America). To all of these questions the correct response is “fine”, if by some chance it is not fine, you say “fine, but…”. While such a long drawn out small talk can be annoying, at this point in time everything about Kyanzi was comforting. Exhausted from my day’s misadventures, I set up my mosquito net (more to protect me from rat dropping falling from the rafters than from any bugs) and slept like a baby in my home-stay bed.
The next day, after my obligatory visit to Kasese, to inform the officials of my presence and purpose, I dove right in to my research. I quickly found the land conflict so interesting that I decided to focus almost entirely on it for my research. Samuel has been instrumental in facilitating my research, both working as a translator, and an “in” to local officials and people.
Being alone in the village (Sally is also working in Bwera, but she spends most of her time at the hospital, and so I’ve not seen here since the first day) has given me my first real case of culture shock in Uganda. Last weekend, I showed Samuel one of my letters of introduction, intended to be shown to the officials wherever I went to conduct research. Surprisingly the letter mobilized Samuel into action trying to help me with my work. He said he had previously misunderstood the purpose of my research and now understood that we had to be doing much more work. I found this funny for a number of reasons, first of all the letter seemed to misinform him that simply because I am living with him that he needs to facilitate my research (while this is not true, I’m keeping my mouth shut because him taking this roll has in some ways come in handy, and I’ve since made clear that I reserve the right to take full control of the direction of the study if his help begins to lead me astray). Next the parts of the letter he sited as showing him what he had previously failed to realize were the parts that Helen (our program assistant who wrote the letters) had clearly BSed as totally filler, such as the goal is “to interact with people of all cultural backgrounds (both Christian and Muslim)”, a goal which is inherent, but also sort of ancillary to the real purpose of my study. I suppose along with being a pre-capitalist society comes being unaccustomed to bureaucratic jargon, which we capitalist can pick out a disregard from a mile away.
Anyway he insisted that we pack our bags this instant and spend the night a little to the south in Katwe, at the heart of the land in conflict, talking to local officials from the Basongora pastoralists and the Bakonzo cultivators. This happened to be exactly what I wanted to do so it worked out well, but this trip would prove a little more culture shock than I could handle. The interviews I got were actually very helpful, and were the first impressions I was able to record from the Basongora point of view. However, the time spent in between left me irritated and wishing only to conclude the trip. Samuel knew the area since he had been a headmaster at a school several years back. He had not returned to the area since he had left, and naturally wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to say hi to some old friends. Unfortunately saying hi in Konzo culture is a lengthy process that I believe has arisen out of the fact that in cultivating villages there is often NOTHING to do. I’ve already described the lengthy greeting speech which accompanies each meeting, but the process of “greeting” people is a little more complex. Basically you go into someone’s house, wait for them to come from wherever they are and say hi (or the lengthy greeting describe above). You then ask all the local news and see if any interesting conversation pops up. If there is you can spend anywhere from ten minutes to three hours talking with this person. If not, you wait till maybe the third awkward silence, and take your leave, making your way to the next house you intend to greet. The practice, which helps to maintain social relations and kill boredom in an interactive and healthy way, is in and of itself a fairly good thing, but when you have things to do it can get annoying. I assume since they presume they will later have nothing to do, if a Mukonzo has some errand to run, he will stop at every house he knows on the way to completing this errand, while it kills time, it makes getting things done in a timely manner difficult. Similarly the process of getting a hotel, meeting the people I’m meant to interview, and getting dinner, an extremely long drawn out process. What’s more is that like all Ugandans the Bakonzo have the problem that they fail to tell you their full plan (this is possibly because they themselves have no plan, Ugandans are terrible planners, and it is not uncommon to make plans with a Ugandan for the next day, the next day when you approach them and ask if they still want to do whatever it is you had agreed upon the day before, they will look at you as though they had never heard of the idea before and act as though you had randomly thought it up on the spot). To this end, Samuel would often say something like, “let us go check into the lodge”, only minutes later to say “let me first greet this friend”, this would lead to a series of greetings, each time he would assure that this is the last one, which added to my skepticism that I could not trust any info he was telling me. It was getting dark and I was worried that the lodge would run out of rooms, so I finally I insisted that before we do anything else we go and check in.
In a related complaint, Ugandans also continually make decisions affecting you without your consent. This is in part because Ugandans don’t seem to plan, but rather continually make a series of impulse decision (in truth the entire trip to Katwe was the result of Samuels impulse decision), in part because it is understandably easier to simply make decisions in their native tongue and relay the information to me once they have finished, and also partly because I believe that Bantu languages (I base this assumption on Swahili, which I consider the standard bearer of the Bantu language group) don’t use works like would, or please. To ask for ice cream, you do not say “Ningepende ice cream tafadale” which translate to “I would like ice cream please”, you instead say “Ninataka ice cream” or “I want ice cream”. Naturally this method of speaking rubs westerners, who spend a good deal of time figuring out how to delicately state their desires, the wrong way. So, I believe, when a Bantu speaker unaccustomed to English manners of speech asks you if you’d presently like to come visit his grandmother (as my home stay brother Gerald [pronounced somewhere between Gerald and Gerard] requested of me the other night) he will say “Now you will go see my grandmother”. I have found that I often get the impression that I am being ordered to do something. As a knee jerk reaction I am very often tempted to refuse merely on principle (sort of like how Mom always tells me of when I was two and she’d ask if I wanted ice cream and I’d say No, simply because I had just figured out that I could, so she’d have to explain to me that in fact I liked ice cream and so would probably enjoy having some). I’ve had to continually check myself.
This not letting me in on his plans became completely unacceptable, however, when after my morning interview with a Basongora cattle herder, Samuel led me, unannounced to the place we had eaten dinner the night before. Though it was only nine in the morning the place was filled with men who had obviously been drinking for some hours. As they ogled over the Muzungu Samuel had dragged with him, he ordered a pint of the local brew himself, and thought nothing of it when I refused the midmorning drink. Thinking that perhaps this was just another greeting on our way to returning home, I sat and put on a smile and did my little Muzungu dance for the two soldiers and two other intoxicated men (I say muzungu dance because I sometimes can’t help but think, whenever I go anywhere with any Ugandan, that I’m merely being put on display for his/her friends). Finally, after about a half hour, I ask Samuel why we were here. He looked at me as if surprised that I didn’t already know, and said we’re here to eat breakfast, and that it will be out momentarily. After what seemed like an hour, I asked again where breakfast was, and once again received the answer that it would be out any minute. Finally, entirely fed up with having to deal with these people, (one of whom was still trying to talk to me despite the fact that he had become so intoxicated he could no longer speak English, and kept on addressing me in Lutoro the local language) while waiting for the breakfast I didn’t even know we were having and which I frankly wasn’t even that hungry for, I demanded that if breakfast wasn’t out in the next five minutes we were leaving (in retrospect I was perhaps a little harsh, but at this point I was entirely fed up with the whole situation and completely unconcerned with who I would offend). At this Samuel went in and saw to it that breakfast was ready to be taken in another room, away from the drunks, in a matter of minutes. By this point I merely wanted to get home.
At the time I was pretty fed up with Samuel, thinking that he had intentionally deceived me to have his own fun, and more or less had complete disregard for the purpose of the journey, which was to enhance my research. In retrospect, I now realize that I had judged much too harshly. In reality, the only reason Samuel had planned this trip in the first place was to help me in my studies, and I certainly can’t blame him for wanting to say hi to some old friends whom he hadn’t seen in years and likely wouldn’t get the opportunity to again any time soon. Everything else was simply the result of a difference in culture. A Mukonzo will see nothing wrong with socializing along the way to completing the task at hand, they are not accustomed to planning, there is apparently no taboo against morning drinking, (this coupled with crippling poverty is likely why there is such a high rate of alcoholism in Uganda), and I suspect since the village where we had stayed was largely a fishing community that this was the end of the day for many of the people in the bar, since they had been up since three fishing on the lake. Finally if you are going to eat at local restaurants, you must expect your meal to arrive according to the local time. Just the same, it was the first time that I really let culture shock get to me, which I think strange since by all accounts by now I ought to be reconciling my cultural differences to the Ugandan culture and “learning and growing from the experience”. Until now, I’ve found adapting to Ugandan culture, while by no means seamless, surprisingly easy.
Back at home, I have become increasingly fonder of my village-stay mother. On my first visit I interacted with her very little, since she speaks minimal English. Despite the language barrier, I’ve now managed to interact quite a bit by simply hanging around the kitchen in my spare time. She will allow me to try some traditional cooking method, and then laugh as I struggle to do it as well as she can. Because of this interaction, I’ve learned to crush g-nuts to make g-nut stew, peel matoke, catch chickens, mingle flour, and sift maize. Since there is little to do in my down time, anything that fills it up is much appreciated. I’ve also read about halfway through Crime and Punishment, which I find a fairly impressive feet considering it’s been less than a week since I started.
I’ve also interacted quite a bit with the children, in particular the three youngest boys, who are 3, 5 and 9. They absolutely love playing with me, and will often merely walk into my room, and stand there while I read. They speak very little English, but this hasn’t prevented a lucritive exchange of childhood games. So far I’ve taught them the hand slap game, that trick where you cross your hands and then try to move the finger your friend points to, how to make a whistle out of a blade of grass (which given how much wild grass there is I can’t believe they didn’t know before), that whistle where you blow in between you thumbs into your clasped hands, and I’ve tried with little success to teach them how to thumb war. In return they’ve tried to show me how to play marbles, although I admit I still don’t get the finer points of scoring (if anyone knows the rules and can explain them well in English I’d greatly appreciate it).
I’ve even tried to affect the methods of discipline in the house. The other day the youngest one Jolame Busa was acting up so his older sister threatened to smack him, thinking I’d appreciate the opportunity to put the fear of God into the kid, she asked if I’d like to do the honors. Personally I’m not entirely against the occasional spanking for a serious offense, but his testing his sister’s nerves hardly constituted that offense, so instead, I took him and put him in the corner. The whole family laughed assured that my mild punishment would never be effective. At first he just tried to run away, but I quickly caught him and put him back into the corner, this time staying close at hand to ensure he wouldn’t make another break for it, and that no fun was had while in the corner. To the surprise of everyone, myself included, he was surprisingly subdued for the rest of the evening, and even seemed a little embarrassed, or angry (it was sort of hard to tell) with me.
Anyway, its been an interesting week, but now it is approaching the time for my meeting with the cultural leaders of the Basongora, and so I must take my leave. I suspect that internet connection will be sparse for the next two weeks (until my triumphant return to Kampala) as I do not think there will be time to make another trip to Kasese town and so I will likely post more blogs then. Till then I plan on returning to the village, doing some more interviews and then heading to the plans of Kasese district to live with the Basongora cattle keepers for a few days. As always, wish me luck!