Life after Kampala...back to work

July 15.
Started back to work yesterday after 3 days off. Isaac went into Kampala (poor Isaac!) to get more internet information and Ronnie picked me up. We took a boda to Seeta and then walked a couple miles to a village where BoHU had previously dug a well so that the villagers had clean water. Tonny soon joined us. The well was far even from the village. The drainage for the well water had become overgrown with dense foliage, backing up the water and causing a muddy mess. While there, a little girl climbed down into the mud and stood there up to her thighs holding her little g-can partially in the mud in order to get to the clean water a bit higher. If left the way it was, it would be a matter of days before the muddy water reached the open spigot. It was a mess.

Tonny had thought that he organized villagers to come and help clean, but no one arrived. Tonny left and came back with two machetes and he and Ronny started hacking the roots and foliage out of the water themselves. Meanwhile, 12 school children arrived with cans to collect water for their teachers. There were three women and two men working in a distant field who could see us but didn’t know what we were doing with all of the children, so they came to check us out. Since they also had machetes, they took turns hacking the foliage and then pulling the muddy mess out as well. The entire process took about two hours, but it looked wonderful when we left.

Later in the afternoon we went to a very poor Muslim secondary school just outside of Mukono. We actually had to climb on a rock to enter the stone building housing the classroom. The classroom was huge and open-air with a dirt floor.

Mothers here don’t talk to their daughters about sex. In fact, the entire subject is a non-word. But Tonny works in AIDS prevention and also works with girls and women who have been “raped or defiled”. All three of our guys distrust the police and Tonny is the guy for miles around to call if you have been raped or are being molested at home. He picks the woman or girls (sometimes boys) up and takes them directly to the Kampala hospital. From there he takes the case to court, totally bypassing the police (whom he doesn’t trust to do anything without a payoff). And he asks the kids to call him if they need counseling of any kind.

So when the guys start gently talking about sex in this Muslim school there is classroom “twittering” but they sure have these older kids attention. The teachers are pretty darned interested too and ask the students for “Maximum Silence” when we speak. We don’t leave the classroom without the students seeing us leave as we have done with the rest. We hear a Muslim prayer and then the students queue up to thank us, bowing and each shaking our hands.

As we left the schoolyard there was an old woman with one leg laying against a building with a cane. She started yelling at me and banging her cane on the ground. I could not understand her so Isaac told me what to say to her. She angrily told Isaac to not give me answers. She seemed very angry that I didn’t speak the language. So she lay there and continued to pointedly yell at me. Isaac and the boys are standing back laughing now as are several other people. I took off my sunglasses and crouched down in front of her, took her hand, and looked her closely in the eye. I used one finger near her face and told her slowly in English “break it out for me” and she understood. She made her sentence in tiny increments and I repeated it back, ending with “Bulungi, Nnyabo” (Fine, Madam) She got a wide grin, took me by the hand, and let me know that I was excused.

My days as the only muzungu around are coming to an end on Thursday. We received word yesterday that a psychiatrist from Great Britain is coming to help us for awhile. I am overjoyed. I am looking forward to speaking with someone who speaks a form of English that I can understand. Even though many people speak English, it is still very, VERY difficult to understand and I welcome a conversation that is easy on the ears.

Yesterday was Isaac’s birthday. We had lots of small children over last night and they sang Happy Birthday to him in English. It was good fun. Viola cooked all day for the party and the food was finally served at 10PM. I was FLOORED when I saw how much those tiny kids ate. I thought Scovia was putting far too much food in the bowls for them as she prepared. She filled the bowls with more than even I could eat. But when the kids finished, the bowls were all clean. When someone offers you food here, you EAT.