Today marks the end of my two week home stay, and I am back
on campus with a greater perspective, appreciation, and an African name - Erica
Louise Bowers Narweyiso.
The home stay was a great but challenging experience – like
everything else has seemed to be!
I had a family of 9: 6 children, 2 parents, and their aunt
all lived in the same house! Both my parents were Reverends and our house was
located on the church property. Five of the kids were girls – Sarah (17), Doris
(10), Patience (7), Aidah (6), and Mary (2). Their brother Paul was 19 and is a
freshman at Uganda Christian University. The family had two cows and a lot of
chickens (like 100) that were used for meat (I never actually saw the entire
process of butchering the chicken, but our meals were enough proof that this
took place on a regular basis!). They also had 2 cows used for milk, and a
kitten (yesss!!) named “clever cat”.
I learned a lot during my time at their house! I was
continuously struck with their hospitality. Wow – they took “hosting” to a
whole new (somewhat uncomfortable) level. Since the moment I arrived, they were
conscious of how I was feeling, where I was sitting, what I was eating, whether
I was tired, wanted to play, needed to study etc. I realized very quickly that
much of their culture is built on respect, and as the guest, they respected and
cared for me in every way. Accepting their service was, in turn, respecting
them.
This was a constantly humbling experience, especially as I
began to realize how much sacrifice was involved in their hospitality. Providing
me with a chair meant that only two others would be allowed a seat – the rest
of the family sat on the ground. I was given a fork while others ate with their
hands. Providing me with milk tea may mean that others will not get any. Breakfast
in the morning required getting up earlier and going to the store. The list
goes on… even now it is still hard to fathom their generosity – it really is
incredible!
A little bit of context:
-
Their home was a 35 minute walk from UCU. I
walked to and from school most days with other students in my program who were
staying nearby. It was such a good experience getting more comfortable walking
through town and trying new street food along the way! My favorite discovery is
what I would compare to “steak fries” made out of plantains
-
There was no running water in the home, but you
could get water from a tap outside
o
Drinking water was made by boiling huuuuggee
pots of water on an open fire
-
The “bathroom” was outside in a wooden
structure. I really did not mind it until one night I found a giant
lizard/dinosaur in there!! (There were many times that I just had to laugh at
how outrageously different things are here compared to the US – that was one of
them!)
-
Cooking was done over coals or fire and the
meals took literally hours to prepare
o
A traditional and popular dish is “matoke” which
is made out of a plantain-like starch. Hopefully I can get pictures at my next
homestay to display how ingenious this dish is – they use every part of the
plant and vegetable in preparing and cooking it
-
The women/girls did all the housework and a majority of the outside work as well
A typical day involved getting up around 7am and immediately
beginning cleaning and cooking. Sometimes laundry was thrown in the mix, but
most of the day was spent on these two tasks. Lunch is the largest meal of the
day (although they all have gigantic portions for all meals!) and was served
around 1pm. Tea time was anywhere between 4-8:30pm; I never could figure out
what variables determined the time. I feel obligated to mention “Mara Clara” –
a highly prioritized portion of the evening. “Mara Clara” is a soap opera from
the Philippines, translated into English and dubbed over in Luganda. With that
combination, it was probably the funniest/worst show I have ever watched, but
by the end of the two weeks I found myself actually enjoying it a bit – it was
simply entertaining to see what these producers would throw in next, and almost
the whole family would gather to watch. Dinner was generally not until 10, and
bed time was directly after… that took some adjusting to!
I got home from school around 7pm and generally spent time
playing with the girls. They showed me some local games and I taught them games
like “red light, green light” and “down by the banks.” By the end of the two
weeks, all the neighborhood kids were coming over every night to play with us.
It was a lot of fun running around the property playing hide-and-go-seek tag
(although the adults in the church often gave me kinda funny looks as I ran
around with all the kids!). I also helped prepare dinners by cleaning dishes or
cutting vegetables, but they never let me very close to the fire itself.
The culmination of all these elements often made me feel
like I was playing the African-version of “house.” It was not until the
beginning of my second week that I was sobered with reality. My host mom is one
of the hardest working women I have ever met – she was always preparing,
cleaning, or serving something. As I was there, her energy level started
declining. She finally told me one night that she was going to the hospital to
get medication for what she thought was malaria. She had never had malaria
before, but her body’s inability to overcome the sickness pointed her to this
conclusion. I still do not know what the results showed, but that night I
seemed to come face-to-face with African life – sickness/hardship is prevalent;
life is demanding. In spite of this illness, my host mom never stopped working because
the family is intricately dependent on one another. Survival is fulltime job.
My hesitation in writing all of this, however, is that it
seems to portray life as very primitive. And in a lot of ways, it is a whole lot simpler. Although I
perceive their life to be very difficult, this lifestyle is normal here, and in
reality, they are an above average Ugandan family. Most importantly, they have
true joy. Their dependency draws them into a deeper love and knowledge of one
another. Each person has spunky personalities and ambitious dreams, and all
work together to help make those dreams possible. I feel privileged to have
been a firsthand witness to their very different but beautiful life. I also
hope to go back and re-connect sometime before the semester is over!
As I am back on
campus, things get a little busier:
This weekend is/has been jam-packed! A few of us went to a
concert Saturday night that happened to be on the roof of a shopping mall – so
great to be under the stars! The entire event was quite humorous, though,
because we arrived around 7 with the impression that the concert was going to
start at 8. We were told that it was not actually beginning until 10, so we
just hung out and played some pool. Finally comedians came on the stage around
10:30 (and talked about the “muzungos” (aka. us white people) for a while during
their performance), but the warm up band didn’t start until 11! After about 3
songs we had to leave because our driver was scheduled to pick us up at 11:30…
Bottom line: we never got to see the main artist! Things like this seem to be a common occurrence
here, so I am learning to embrace it!
Where to next: My cross-cultural ministry practicum at
Vision for Africa begins this week. I will be working with orphans in primary
levels 1 and 2. I think this is the US equivalent of first and second grade,
but I actually have no idea. I found out today that I will be helping the
teachers in classrooms and running my own class for an hour! Wow– that was
unexpected and I have no idea what I will teach, but it should be fun! Tonight
we will be attending a 4 hour show of traditional African dances. Finally, we
are watching the superbowl Monday morning from 2-6am! I’m looking forward to
being relevant on something American, although I might fall asleep before the
game ends…
Today also is the one month mark in Uganda – I can’t believe
it!
