Life in Nangoro so far

The last few days of adjustment and learning have alternated between moments of intense intake of information and calm moments where I have nothing to do but sit and watch what goes on around me.  This is definitely a time of absorption, which is natural, although it has been a challenge to get used to doing what feels like nothing for extended periods of time. 

I am so happy that Samson brought me directly to Nangoro village the day I arrived, without so much as stopping in Mbale.  I have been able to participate in and observe daily life here on JJ’s farm, and get a good idea of what goes on here.  The farm is incredibly diverse, as I saw on my walk with Zilpa yesterday.  Of course there is coffee, but around, under, and above the coffee there is vanilla, beans, rice, maize, mango trees, papayas, bananas and plantains, guavas, jackfruit, peanuts, tomatoes, eggplant, pumpkins, and greens, and probably much more that I have not yet seen, or that I cannot recognize.  For instance, in her grandmother’s garden, Zilpa showed me a patch of small plants laden with little, round, bright-red cherries that looked like a cross between a round chile pepper and a mini-tomato.  She said that the old people grew them and cooked them with greens, but that they were bitter and she did not like them at all. I bit into one, and yes, it was bitter with a hint of spice, but mostly bitter.  Who knows what it is?

For all of this production, people are constantly working.  The coffee harvest began a week ago Monday, so the older boys go out every morning (except Saturday, when they go to Synagogue in the morning and study the Torah and other texts in the afternoon) to pick coffee, taking advantage of the next few weeks they will be home before they return to school for exams.  The younger children are at the local school, and the older girls stay at home to do the work of the house and to take care of the drying of the current bean harvest.  I spend most of my time so far with Zilpa and Stacy, both fifteen years old, but they too will return on Thursday to boarding school.  Here on the farm it is a constant, steady rhythm of activity.

When I actually went into Mbale on Saturday night with Kakaire and Aziz (two young and hip brothers who work for Peace Kawomera and live in Mbale) to eat out and go to a local club for a beer afterwards.  At the restaurant, we watched the tail end of the Liverpool-Sunderland soccer game (or “Loserpool” as Aziz called the team, since he is most loyally a Manchester fan).   The club we went to after dinner was full of young people drinking ginger beer or various Ugandan beers, and chatting over the music, which varied from American hip-hop to African reggaeton to (wait for it) that song “Africa” that we all loved in the 1980s (who sings that?). Oh, the irony.

I was amused to notice how shocked I was at how liberal the city is, compared to rural areas, not because I expected it to be as conservative as the village, but because I was used to the village. My two days in the village had accustomed me to seeing women with their heads covered and in long skirts, and to the deeply religious nature of the people in the village as well, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish.  I could have laughed at my own internal reaction to seeing women drinking beer in the club we went to. But tradition and religion are not absent in the city by any means – a couple of people in the club chose to sit outside on the patio where it was dark and empty because, they said, “we are Muslims, and if people saw us drinking beer, they would say, ‘You are Muslim and drinking beer – how is this?’, and it is better not to raise such questions”.  

But I liked what I saw of the city: it is busy without being frantic, full of vendors on the sidewalks and people of all shapes and sizes and dress, walking or riding bikes or bodabodas (motorcycle taxis).  Hopefully I will find an apartment there this week, and can explore it further. 

Still having immense trouble uploading fotos, even after making the files smaller, etc...I will keep trying.