Among the rural banana groves ten miles into the hills behind
Masaka, Uganda 25 august 2012. As much
in the middle of nowhere as I can imagine, and yet every 500 yards a little
house or two, an occasional “store” out front selling tomatoes and melons. Banana groves everywhere. I can see how this little country smaller
than the state of Oregon can hold 34 million people. Their lifestyles and consumption are so
meager and tied to the amazingly fertile soil, that it is largely
sustainable. With a 3.2% growth rate, it
won’t remain so for long: in 22 years the pop. will have doubled. Imminent scarcity is just around the corner
and everybody senses it; the competition to get ahead makes the hustle &
bustle of urban life perfectly miserable.
Get rich or die tryin’ seems to be the common sentiment, esp. among the
tweens and up. We drove throughout
Kampala today, a city of about four million (but who knows since there is
virtually no building codes throughout the dozens of slums) and just remarked
how if everybody actually obeyed the traffic “laws” the city would move much
more quickly. Instead, everybody cuts
everybody else off, parks anywhere, throws trash everywhere, which after a good
rain clogs the sewers, causing flooding.
Come on, people, make some connections.
Wrapped Inside this external shell of Darwinian sensibility is a creamy
milk chocolate center, a soft candy middle made of human kindness, compassion
and love. Africa is a great paradox of
violence and survival skills within a long-lasting culture of charity. Lately, this charity has turned inward, to a
widespread expectation that the rich world will solve Africa’s problems, that
foreign aid will come with no strings attached, or what strings are attached in
the Structural Adjustment Programs can be easily massaged into another “success
story”, and with a little spit and polish on whatever was funded, more funding
will come; all is needed is to send a few posters to Europe or America of the
underprivileged children who can’t go to school but for the help of the IMF,
the World Bank, or the USAID: famine, if properly promoted, is good for African
politicians.
Anyway, among those amazing and eerily beautiful banana
groves in the rural mountains near Masaka a new
Kkobe Clan sub-chief induction ceremony was planned, and since Ssimbwa
knows I love to study culture, he allowed me to tag along. Masaka is 130km south of Kampala. In the states it would take less than an
hour; it took us two and a half.
Mechanics, especially suspension/shocks/brakes experts must be
millionaires here. So many pot holes I
asked Ssimbwa if there had been a recent war here. Mortar shell landings you could get lost in
passed for potholes to be negotiated as casually as we would a jaywalker. Don’t get me started on jaywalkers in
town. The Rexburg police could fund the
taj mahal with the fines incurred from those not using the crosswalks, since
they don’t exist. The jaywalkers’ taj
mahal would then become the mayor’s house if we kept to the model I see here.
Present were around 1500 members of the clan in a week of mourning and
celebration as the new head of a house within the clan died and his eldest son,
one of 50, took his place.
I’ve attended a few ceremonies as Ssimbwa’s “mascot”—a
brideprice ceremony; a funeral; a birth; several leadership meetings; a meeting
with the PM for the Kingdom of Buganda.
But this one was fantastic, but only near the end. Most of the day was
spent watching the new clan leader speak to his muslim underlings; we
Christians sat across the road and looked on, checked our phones, read the
papers or merely chatted with our neighbors.
Just when I thought I was being summoned to leave I was asked to join a
dinner ceremony with the other clan chiefs.
We were escorted into a banana grove. I don’t know if you you’ve ever
been in a banana grove. Maybe it was just the light; maybe just my euphoria at
getting out of my sweaty chair and going into the shaded tent, a tarpaulin
covering banana leaved fencing with dried grass as the floor. The orange hue of the tarp made the food look
particularly surreal. The whole event was surreal and I found myself teetering
on the verge of a cliff: do I eat the greyish beef I saw boiling in pots big
enough to bathe in in a filmy broth? Was
I merely washing my hands ceremonially in larvae infested canal water, knowing
that no utensils would be provided? I
knew when I saw the volume of food being served—rice being scooped by plates
onto my plate, that this was starting to feel like a frat party hell night, or a
rerun of Fear Factor. I knew that what I
began to unconsciously ingest would more than likely come up on the way back
along the rutted red clay road to Masaka.
Masaka, an appropriate sound when vomiting at 80 clicks/minute. What put me over the top was the
presentation: old ladies in their finest sateen dresses, as bright as a
birthday, on their knees putting plate after plate in front of us “men’ also on
our knees (except me and Ssimbwa—I suppose they thought an American professor
would not stoop so low. And what was served so eloquently and understated was
the staple of Uganda. Matoke is an east
African specialty and is the reason this part of Africa is so overpopulated: starchy
and highly caloric green bananas—the kind the baboons go wild for—steamed
within a tightly wrapped layer of banana leaves and left over a boiling
cauldron for hours and hours. It is
culinary art, especially when they serve it to you in custom wrapped banana
leaves which makes for a beautiful presentation, at least to we outsiders. The
banana seems to be more a part of east
African culture than our Idaho corollary: the potato. Whereas the potato
is a
means to an end for farmers, the banana for farmers here is the staff of
life; it's a ceremonial as well as quotidien product. They make huts
out the leaves, etc.. The trees grow so abundantly that hunger is
virtually unknown in Uganda, despite the huge population. After
50 meals of matoke, it no longer
becomes culinary art; it becomes chewy yellow tasteless goo on cheap
plastic eaten with worrisomely dirty fingers that have shaken every hand
in Uganda. But I’m not there yet in my sojourn.
I cleaned my plate and licked my fingers, for fear of
offending. I even ate the spinal sinewy stuff coming off the beef. It stayed down, thus far. Dare I tempt fate and try the roasted
grasshoppers?
And to think, I forgot to pack a camera thinking my phone would
suffice until Kat & the kids came.
The anxiety about housing has been quite high. The university where I’ll be teaching agreed
to “safe and comfortable” housing. We dropped
by on my first day to their selection: a two bedroom duplex too small for
us. I put Ssimbwa on the task of finding
us a decent place to live and he did, but it’s more expensive and the
university is balking at the extra price, since I’m only teaching one class and
only for two months at that, so I understand their concerns. Maybe I can talk
another university into letting me teach in exchange for chipping in on the
nicer place. Nicer is a relative term.
It’s nicer than a termite mound, but not quite as good as what I had hoped. It’s
at least private and, ostensibly, secure.
The neighborhood could use some sprucing up, though. Africa is not unlike medieval Europe in that
a palace can exist just next to a slum.
Ssimbwa’s place, where I’m staying now, is a bit of the latter, but just
over a wall is a place that looks like it belongs on a Kauai golf course:
immaculate, palatial, clean and secure.
Someone is making money around here. Africa is home to seven of the top ten
fastest growing economies.
Ssimbwa wants to take us to an abattoir tomorrow. I
have meetings with the Mutesa I faculty and
there is another administrator for the state trying to talk me into
teaching
another section, not on history or Then to Hoima where there are
numerous
refugee camps from the violence in western DRC. My faculty colleagues
are all over this one, especially Jeremy Lamoreaux of Political
Science. A refugee camp near Eastern Congo is like cat nip to a
political scientist studying corruption and violence.Our business
professor is a bit more reserved about the trip. I just hope I can
score a camera at some point. Ssimbwa's home is the repository for all
of the things the humanitarian missionaries leave behind. He has an
entire room just of empty luggage. I found two nice Nikon Coolpix, one
with no battery and both with no chargers. Not sure if they work & I
should invest in a charger, or just bite the bullet & pony up
200,000 shillings for a decent camera just so you readers won't think
I'm making this stuff up and not living in Phoenix for the semester.
More on the way. Hey, maybe in Hoima (where the refugee camps are located) I can use some of my dilapidated French.
