I’m spending our afternoon siesta sitting curled up on my sunflower spangled bed with a kitten resting its chin on my knee. Oh to live the farm life. Outside, the kids are playing a game of soccer that often comes to an abrupt halt as the ball rolls under our mammoth truck, Snowflake, while two girls run chasing each other around yodeling at the top of their lungs. I’m currently sizing Paulo up through the window after a particularly embarrassing game of “futball” (soccer) last night. Sure, it was dark, and sure, I’m not used to playing barefoot on a rocky road, but still, when playing against an eight year old, you would expect that I’d be able to touch the ball more than 10% of the time. But Paulo already seems to have mastered a skill I’ve never learned: he knows how to keep the ball right next to his foot. When we finally tire of Keep-Away—me because at best I’m keeping it away from him for a couple seconds, him because it’s become a domination rather than a game—we switch to passing and then shooting, which lasts for a while as my six years of co-ed town league goalie start to come back until the ball’s bright orange color gets lost for a fourth time in the banana grove behind our makeshift goal. Now again, they are using the orange ball we picked up at the supermarket, not so much for it’s bright color, but because the only soccer ball they have on the farm is a small, deflated volleyball.
Another stark difference between our culture and theirs is how the women on the farm act. Now there is nothing bad with a little sexism now and then: by all means, please hold that door for me or let me get off the sinking Titanic first. As long as it’s under the heading of chivalry, I’m not really going to object. But it’s not like that here. The men spend their evenings lounging around outside while the women divide their days between the endless work of cleaning a house or preparing a delicious feast for dinner (Mami prepares possibly the best tomato and cheese eggs I have had and her chapatti’s are ineffable buttery perfection). Furthermore, one of the women went down on her knees when offering a dinner plate to a man who had been watching her cook all night. Future husband, if you ever read this: I will never get down on my knees to offer you a plate of food. Prepare yourself accordingly. There is also a young girl here around the same age as Paulo who sets the table and does the dishes while Paulo… plays soccer. She came out at one point while we were playing last night, probably to help the women cooking over the open fire, but when I kicked the ball to her she joined in with a passion for five minutes. We were quite a picture: Judice trying to kick the ball in her long dress, Paulo sending the ball careening into the forest with a fierce scream followed by a joyous smile, me running to stop the balls Paulo kicked into the forest all the while stumbling on rocks, all while the aforementioned kitten from the first sentence attempted to catch what must to her be a giant yarn ball. I digress, cultural differences, we are here to experience them for what they are. Isn’t that why we travel?
Besides Paulo and Judice (the aforementioned girl), there are three other kids here: a six year old named Patrick who loves to have Katie whirl him around and two three year old girls named Maria and Susanna. Yesterday, the two of them fell asleep on Katie and my laps, their little hands curled around our fingers, single handedly convincing me that I do want to suffer through the pain of both pregnancy and childbirth if only to have a child half as cute as one of them. Yesterday, Dov and I tried to read a National Geographic article while Maria and Susanna flipped through the pages slapping each picture and calling “Kan-ga!” which apparently means “Mine!”. Watching three year olds in all pink and purple outfits do this? Beyond adorable.
But our time in Masaka has not been just spent chasing three year olds around (though fortunately we have gotten to do a lot of that). Yesterday, Peter gave us a tour of his farm—one that serves as a model for teaching the local communities how to support themselves and their families with food and money through agriculture. In a word, it was impressive. For one thing, everything there had multiple uses. While I might look at a plant and see fruit for food, Peter also sees potential for shade, protection from soil erosion, leaves for wrapping food, good for animals, and cuttings to give out to other farmers so they could plant their own incredibly useful plant. Not only are his plants super resourceful, but so are his projects, such as his solar power initiative, where for a small price of $5 USD a family can power their cell phones, essential for communication between the farmers. This in turn saves more than a million shillings a year per family, as well as save them from having to pay for a sometimes dangerous ride into town to charge their cell phone. But his most impressive project is his new biomass plant that was finished today. The plant takes waste and converts it into methane gas that can be used to power the farm to heat stoves and give light. It also accelerates the breakdown of manure a vital fertilizer for growth at the farm. In addition, it also creates a pesticide that can be used to save crops from the insects that plague them. So not only does it help save trees from being burned in a stove and plants from being decimated by bugs, but it also saves money that would be used to provide light and heat for a house. As I said, impressive.
Another project Peter is working on is a well for the farm and its neighbors. At present hundreds of families have to walk down to the valley each day to fetch their water in jerry cans and carry them back all the way home. With Uganda having 35% of its territory covered in water, its not necessarily a scarcity. But what is lacking is infrastructure. Building a well for the community is one step forward in bringing water infrastructure to this community. The well is currently a little over twenty feet deep, but will probably have to go down to fifty until they hit water. Yesterday, Dov actually went all the way down to the bottom and heaved a pick for a couple minutes until clambering his way back up using a rope and balancing his feet against the smooth clay wall. Today, Drew, Dan and I joined him down there, but, unfortunately, complications arose from my not doing twenty pull-ups each day and after several attempts to climb the rope, I had to be heaved back up by an extremely muscular man. It was incredibly embarrassing, but fear not, I will hopefully get a chance to venture down there again and plan to start practicing my pull-ups whenever I can bring myself to push this curled up kitten off the bed.
I think the coolest part of the farm, besides the fact that they have a BABY MONKEY, is that its goal is not just to provide food but also to create community networks. Farmers are encouraged to sell food as a cooperative as they will have more bargaining power as a co-op and will be able to attract large buyers. Each farmer that joins is put in a group with a President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Information Secretary that provides intel on the market price of the goods so farmers don’t accidentally sell their crops for less. Putting farmers into such a group provides a structure that supports and teaches each member.
Peter also has guest speakers come to talk to his farmers about issues such as domestic abuse, alcoholism, and HIV/AIDS. Masaka, where the farm is located, is the place where the HIV epidemic started and spread—the first case was found here in the late 1970s. This was really brought home today when we spent the morning planting two hundred orange trees. In six months, Peter said, the trees would bear oranges and each orange can sell for a thousand shillings. With two hundred trees planted—and the project plans for four hundred total—and each tree bears over a hundred in a harvest, that is a significant amount of money raised. And where does all this money go? Peter is using it to provide school uniforms, books and, of course, food, for children orphaned by HIV. In the neighboring communities there are hundreds of children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS that Peter’s project is now going to provide meals, healthcare, and education for the community. It feels good to know our presence here and our donated funds are truly helping these people.
The farm is huge and rambling, so much that walking around it on a tour is an overwhelming experience. The beehives maintain a local bee population to pollinate the plants, a factory produced grain grinder makes flour without cancer-causing metals, the pregnant goats are given away to needy families who meet the co-op’s agricultural goals. There is so much activity going on around here and each new corner, each twist in the path holds a new project that truly can and does change Ugandan lives. Seeing firsthand the true improvements that a project like Peter’s can bring about makes me think twice about the power of macrofinance–pouring billions into a government budget where corruption reigns and money rarely trickles down to the people who need it. In smaller projects like this, the dollar goes a long way. There’s something about spending a morning up to your thighs in red dirt, planting an orange tree and knowing that in six months a few oranges will mean a plate of food, new clothes and school fees for a child that refreshes and renews you. Just yesterday Peter told us a story of a middle-aged man who had given up hope of ever being able to put food on the table for his family. He came to Peter’s farm where he received a small amount corn seeds and planted an acre of them. The next season, using the seeds from the first acre, he planted several more. Now, six years later, he is not only a middle-aged man, but a middle-class citizen. He doesn’t just have food to feed his family, but he is also able to afford to send his daughter to graduate school to be a lawyer. This is just an example of one of the many lives that Peter’s farm has affected. His farm is one of hope in a world that so often tells stories of failure and strife.
After today’s orange planting, we ended the morning gnawing on sugarcane and oranges that Peter promises will add 5 years to our lives. Hopefully this will now mean I can make it to 70—just in time for retirement! I think I’ll go to Greece… We spent this afternoon resting and then returned to the farm to witness bark being stripped off a tree to be turned into fancy clothing worn for weddings and funerals. After removing the bark from the tree, the two men brought it to a field where they set banana peels on fire on top of the fabric to soften it and then we all got a chance to beat it with a variegated mallet that left zig-zag patterns on it. We will all get a chance to take a bit of the cloth home with us.
Most of our evenings so far (this is only day two) have consisted of playing with the little kids: reading I Spy, playing soccer and Katie and I swaying Patrick and Susanna around the room to the Little Mermaid’s Part of Your World. Yesterday, our group met on our back field to journal, play Pictionary Telephone and watch the sun set. It hit home, we are in Africa. After dinner we had a hilarious dance party where we danced with everybody at our home stay. I tried to teach Paulo how to disco and he tried to teach me… how to dance. Then today Peter arranged a drum ceremony for us, as he put it, “you wouldn’t be honored guests unless you heard the beat of the Ugandan drum”. Several men began to do some wild beats on the drum and then suddenly out of the shadows came four kids dancing with banana-leaf skirts around their waists. They were soon joined by the rest of the household kids who tied sweatshirts around their waists and then joined in the hip shaking and hand twisting. Dan grabbed his bongos and jumped up there to join the drummers—the first time they followed his beat and the second he quite successfully followed their lead. For the last dance, as the kids chanted “Waybaday” (thank you) to the beat of the song, we all joined in dance. Not a bad way to end the night.
All the best, Morgan (May) and the rest of the gang PS.
