On the way to Biwanda villege, where Jess lives.
Banana is the main food staple here, and every part of the fruit and tree is used. Here the man is doing something with banana leaves, which can be used as roof tiles.
The town of Nyendo, the nearest town to Biwanda. We usually get off the bus (from Kampala) here and try to catch another taxi, which is a sedan, like all the white cars here, that will squeeze in at leaat 8 or 9 people. The taxi drivers are waiting for riders to fill up their taxis, and were all too eager to get 2 muzungu girls into their cars.
Our first meal in Jess' apt! We made a cucumber and tomato salad and ate left over matoke (mashed bananas wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over open fire for several hours).
My hair was always dirty, between sweating and the dust from being outside. There are quite a bit of dust particles in the air, because the Uganda trash collection system consists of families burning their trash in their yards.
Jess lives with Ugandan nuns in a convent, shown here. This was definitely the nicest house in the village.
From the side.
Other side.
Jess lives in this wing.
Front yard of the house.
Front of the house.
Entrance to Jess's wing.
Inside Jess's wing.
Jess's hallway. She has a bedroom, a huge bathroom bigger than my bedroom in Chicago, and a kitchen/living room/dining room.
Malaria is a very common disease, so misquito net is necessary, and lots of bug spray.
Jess had a spacious bedroom, and electricity sometimes which meant she could actually use her computer to write things, organize pictures and music. No internet though.
Dresser. Built in closets are very uncommon outside the U.S.
A sink! Jess is probably the only Peace Corp volunteer in the country who has running water, though it never really worked during the 2 weeks I was there. We got our daily water from a huge water tank that collects rain water run-offs from the roof. To drink water you must first boil it. Even after boiling there's usually a layer of dirt that falls to the bottom of the pan.
Jess had really high ceilings. 16 feet?
I became really annoyed with Jess's salt because the opening was so small! Every time I use it I had to shake it violently for about 30 seconds over the cooking pan. We cooked whenever we could, because matoke is about all people eat, even in restaurants. Matoke with beef, or chicken, or lamp, or fish, or beans, but still it's matoke all the time.
Making a memorably delicious meal of stir fried green beans, stir fried tomatos and scrambled eggs, rice, wine and grilled cheese sandwiches! Cheese is very expensive and only available in larger towns with a big supermarket (because it needs refrigeration). Here Jess is pouring the wine through a strainer.
Sarah, fellow Peace Corp volunteer, bought and made the grilled cheese.
Organic trash is kept separately and fed to the pigs, in the purple can. Everything from egg shells to carrot peels to rotten cucumbers and sour rice went into this can. Nothing is wasted here.
Taken at dusk in the courtyard of the convent.
This tub collects rain water so we can flush our toilets. We have real toilets here at the convent, which I didn't see at any other residences.
Entrance to the communal bathroom at the convent.
Sink which doesn't often have water. I washed my hands with water from the tub outside.
Toilet and toilet paper too.
The nuns that we lived with own lots of land and run quite a few schools around here. They run a deaf school, where the kids photoed here are learning how to raise cows. The headmistress said that before, they were only teaching the kids academic subjects, but once they finish here (it only goes to 6th grade I believe, and the school is funded by some German charity), they will have to return to their village, and then they can't do anything because they have no skills. So the headmistress is trying to implement some practical training such as planting matoke or raising cows, so these kids can be productive and feed themselves when they leave school.
For the Peace Corp, Jess helps with the HIV/AIDS clinic at Villa Maria Hospital which is in town, and also teaches 2 health classes to middle and high school aged girls at the school the nuns run. Jess made a question box so girls can drop off questions they are too embarrassed to ask in class. The pile of paper are the anonymous questions. It was eye-opening to see, some of the girls had no understanding of their bodies, including menstruation, STDs or the relationship between exercise and weight changes. Parents don't really tell their kids about what their bodies are going through, what is normal, and how to stay healthy and protect themselves. We read some pretty fanciful theories about pregnancy and how HIV is spread.
The soil is very red in this part of the country. You'll see, in pictures taken on the Western border in Queen Elizabeth and BIwindi National Parks, the geography, and soil, are very different. Jess and I took a walk from her convent to the local hospital. Local means that it serves everyone within a few hundred, maybe a thousand, kilometers.
Matoke, or banana, tree.
They are everywhere.
This truck was dumping manure into the banana tree field.
Housing is very concentrated. This mud hut probably houses at least 5 people: the 3 kids and their parents.
Mud huts are the norm in villages.
Of course some families are better off.
The village stores. A cluster of maybe 5 shops selling some produce and home products like soup and matches. Surprisingly, or maybe not, many consumer products are made in China. I suppose that's true in most places, but in most places, the products are made with English or whatever the local lanugage, whereas the products here are made in Chinese. It's almost like in the West, sellers don't necessarily want people to obviously see that products are made in China, whereas here, it doesn't seem to matter. Candles, matches, even auto components are made in China with Chinese writing. Jess always buys food from this store keeper.
The round green things aren't limes, they're oranges! They were rather sour and not very juicy. Lots of fruit in Uganda are imported from South Africa, such as apples, and therefore expensive. There were no apples in Biwanda.
The cluster of village shops.
Smoked fish and plantains.
Still in Biwanda.
At the hospital, Villa Maria, in front of their anti retroviral clinic. Jess works with this office to promote HIV/AIDS education, administer testing and distribute the medication to the local villages. The clinic is funded by one or a few Western charities.
This is Lillian, one of the staffs of the clinic. She was extremely friendly, nice and spoke good English. She invited us to attend her introduction, which is a ceremony for couples who are about to get married. Its purpose is for the families and friends of both side to meet and greet. Unfortunately it was in June, past my stay in Uganda, but I believe Jess went!
A few days later we decided to take a day trip to a local lake, which was one of the few lakes in Uganda one can swim in. Most lakes are infested with a parasite that gets under your skin, but this one is not. Because of the parasite problem, and no public pools, most Ugandans do not know how to swim. Except those that live along the Nile river and Lake Victoria.
It started to rain when we got to the lake, so Jess, me, Sarah and Erin sat under a gazebo. The people who operated this lake park/resort had donkeys who came up to us.
Erin fed them some g-nut.
They wanted more.
Erin decided it was enough.
Erin putting her g-nut, and any other paper product, away.
Jess was petting the donkey so I did too.
While petting him/her, the donkey bit me! That spot got a bit swollen and red. I still have the scar on me!
Later in the day the bite got redder and swelled. Luckily the it didn't break any skin or I'd really regret not gettng that rabies shot.
Fish and chips for lunch. Because it was a resort the meal cost about $2.75. The whole fish was fried, its horrific facial expression forever frozen as we devoured it.
Finally the rain stopped. We rented a boat, rowed a bit and Sarah and Jess swam. I was a little paranoid about getting in the water.
When we were arriving at the lake it had big signs advertising its sand beach. Even the boat house had the sand beach sign.
No sand on sand beach!
We searched and searched; no sand.
An internet cafe in Masaka.
We lived among forests! Though I believe most lands are owned by individual families, though I don't know how extensive property rights are in Uganda. They could just be leasing the land from the government. The nuns, however, do own a lot of land in the area.
A termite mound. These things are everywhere and ranges in size, some are taller than me!
They are brothers, sitting near the road waiting for their dad.
I took a solo walk around the village. I love walking around by myself, I can stop and take pictures whenever I like, talk to whomever I like and behave in ways that I believe are appropriate and respectful, not necessarily what I've been told about how foreigners should behave.
Reminded me of the chickens we raised in our backyard when I was little. Back then Beijing had houses with yards, albeit very small ones. We also didn't have a bathroom, so we used the public shower house for showers and the public bathroom. The shower house was very... collective: a huge room, one for each gender, lined with rows of showers and you shower with hundreds of others. All the naked bodies sort of blended into a sea the color of flesh. Instead of walking to the public bathroom, I often used a pot, and my dad buried my, uh excrement, in our yard. This excellent source of nutrition enriched our soil and produced extremely fat earthworms. And as a result we had extremely well fed chicken that were absolutely delicious.
Ahhh, memories.
The sky was huge, everywhere we went. There's nothing blocking it.
Country road, take me home.
Women, regardless of their age, kept their hair extremely short. I think more out of convenience than fashion. Only in Kampala did I see women with longer hair. School girls must keep their hair short like this.
These girls wanted two things: candy and having their pictures taken. Because I am a muzungu, I was almost always stared at, bombarded and chased after by children. It's not a bad feeling, just that in the West, you only get this much attention if you're famous, and looks alone won't make you famous. But it sure does in Uganda.
This is the traditional dress of Ugandan women. I was expecting something with much more earthy and tribal patterns. This almost reminds me of the traditional dress of Pilipino women, with the pointed sleeves.
I spoke with this little boy's mom, who is a teacher for a school in the nearby town. She was standing outside their house waiting for a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) to go into town.
The teacher's daughter and son. They were very sweet-looking and much more well mannered. They did not ask me for candy, shout excitedly or chase after me.
Another woman who walked pass us. Apparently I had met her earlier but couldn't remember. She was also going into town and waiting for a boda boda. I don't know how well these 2 women knew each other, but I was constantly amazed at the ease in which people in Uganda (except in Kampala) stroke up conversations with strangers. People talk easily with anyone on the street, and always use very warm and affectionate body language.
A large pig. I have never seen any pork products in restaurants, but I can't imagine why else Ugandans would raise pigs. Oh I did see ham in the grocery store Shoprite, in Kampala.
The local church. Religion is very prevalent in Ugandan society. I believe about half the population is Protestant, then 40% or so are Catholic, some Muslims and some who practice traditional religions (animists). Praying and church-going are part of daily life. Atheism is a foreign concept to most. When I asked my driver Daniel (during my national park tours) about religion, he could not understand how there can be people who does not believe in god or a higher being.
They quietly followed me on my walk.
High school girls taking a stroll after dinner. They are required to keep their hair that short.
One of the girls and her brother, who insisted that we should go on a date, or just go to his room. Huum. I'll take a photo for them instead.
Sun setting behind the mountains full of banana plantations.
Walking back to the convent.
Driving long-distance in Uganda proved surprisingly easy. There is only one main road that goes in a circle around the country. As far as I can tell, this road, along with some secondary roads that branch off of this, and the main streets of the larger cities, are the only paved roads. The fastest I've ever driven in Uganda was on this road, 80-100 km (50-60 miles). Even so, one must be careful as there are still plenty of livestock, pedestrians and cyclists along this "highway."
Uganda is a good training place for someone who will face large crowds: by the end of my trip I was completely nonchalant to stares!
After our cross country road trip to see 2 national parks, I asked if I could see my driver Daniel's house. This is his children's bedroom.
Dining table. Daniel drives a hired taxi, which means you hire him for a whole day or a specific trip, so he has a lot of foreign clients and thus makes a very good living relative to others in his village. He definitely has a vey nice house.
The living room is behind the curtains. Daniel's 2 daughters are standing in front.
I never asked why, in most houses, the walls never go all the way up to the ceiling. So most residences, if the family is rich enough to afford a large house with multiple rooms, are all lofts.
Daniel in his living room.
This is the bathing area. Because there is no running water, people usually just take buckets of cold water and pour it on themselves. Jess and I would boil water on her gas stove, mix this hot water with a bucket of cold water, then pour it on ourselves.
The toilet, a pit latrine. This is a separate structure away from the house in the backyard. To build one, first you dig a hug, extremely deep hole in the ground, probably 70-100 feet deep, then put cement on top to make the floor and finally erect walls. Daniel said a pit latrine usually lasts around 10 years before the hole fills out. When it does, you tear down the wall and remove then cement floor, then just cover the hole with dirt. And you dig another big hole somewhere else.
Daniel's wife. In Uganda, weddings are an extravaganza. You have to invite everyone in your social circle: extended family, friends, school mates, co-workers, and the entire village that you and your spouse live in. You can't only invite the people you know, everyone in the village has a right to come to your wedding and will do so. The groom or his family must pay for all the food, music and other entertainment. He also has to buy gifts for everyone in the bride's extended family as well as give her closer relatives large sums of money. Daniel and his wife never had an offiicial wedding for this reason; he believes a proper one would cost 1 or 2 million Ugandan shillings ($760-1520), an astronomical sum for most. According to Daniel, most people do not have weddings because they are so costly. His wife has been pressing him, so he is saving money to have one.
Daniel's youngest, a son. Daniel has the only water spigot in his part of the village. The only school in the village received funding from a British or American charity last year and got running water, so Daniel paid the school some money every month and diverted some of the water to his back yard. Now his family do not have to walk outside their yard to fetch water, and Daniel charges his neighbors a few shillings for every jerry can of water they fetch from him.
