Author Archives: Todd

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Day Eight, April 22:

Nancy Cardoza, the founder and director of Going In Love Ministries, opened her home to us. She fed us local cuisine, and it was better breakfast than I remember having in any American restaurant. Matooke (plantains) in G-nut sauce (sort of like soupy peanut butter), avocado with passion fruit, and beans leftover from last night's dinner topped with a little local honey (much darker than orange blossom or clover honey made by Italian honey bees found in America). There is no talk here about "organic" or "unprocessed" because everything is. There are not many refrigerated markets, and when there are, the refrigerators are chilling the water or maintaining ice cream, a novel delicacy around here. We took our breakfast spoiled with such flavorful fare that fit nicely in my personal plan of eating healthy.

Nancy told me that she rarely eats meat anymore, having grown accustomed to Ugandan markets. Since her solar panels are not strong enough to support a refrigerator she only makes meat dishes on special occasions. She said chicken is more costly in the market than even pork or beef, and is a rare treat. There is no such thing as specialized pet food here, so the dogs ate whatever meat we left, plus some sardine-like fish which Nancy fed them whole. We had seen this before, when Carol Adams had fed her cat the same thing plus a couple eggs which I apparently broke on the way home from the market. In my defense, the whole flat of eggs was placed in a plastic bag for transport. This is the practice here.

After breakfast, Cindy washed our clothes and I wrung them and hung them on the line. This act is apparently the African equivalent of washing one's car because as soon as I finished and we left the house, the previously clear sky clouded up with large rain clouds.

Anthony drove Cindy, Nancy, and another guest to the Tegot-Atoo village about 20km away, while I took the boda-boda (motorcycle for hire). I don't know if my perspective was different or the back roads we took just lent us a deeper look into the culture, but the mud huts looked even less objectionable close up. Many were encircled by beautiful flower gardens, but almost all stood along larger planted gardens or farms. The terrain was dusty, as evidenced by the reddish-brown appearance of my clothes and skin after the boda-boda ride. It made me think of how I considered the dirty or dingy as more poverty-stricken. I am the same guy today I was yesterday, but today I am dusty. Big deal!

20140424-145133.jpgThe ladies of the Tegot-Atoo village received us like royalty, singing, clapping, hopping and cheering as we entered the church building. This church building was open, with a dirt floor, and only a few benches. The forty-five or so Acholi women seated themselves on papyrus mats as my boda-man and new friend Ochora Charles, also known as "Charlie International" turned himself into Charlie the English Teacher and gave the ladies a lesson. When English studies were over, the women of the Tegot-Atoo Hill Group got to work on their quilts. Working in several groups of four to five women, they practiced their new skill in hopes of raising money to support their families. The work was quite beautiful too, and we will be bringing one of the finished quilts home.

As they worked, the women got to use Charles' translation services to tell us what their main concerns were. Chief on everyone's mind was the welfare of their children. Some asked for more child sponsorships, others for medical support, many voiced a wish that they might obtain their own building so they could work on the quilts more than just Tuesdays and perhaps safely keep a community sewing machine. About half the women said they were raising children alone with no male support. While we were there, the group was interrupted by village drunks three times, and each time the offender was gently escorted out of the wide open church shelter.

One woman said that when she is sick she has to travel to a far away clinic for medicine, which costs her a day of work plus travel expense which few of these women had. She would like a clinic with medicine in the village.

20140424-145403.jpgThe women fed us, but did not eat. This made me feel honored way beyond my status. One team leader named Nancy (not Cordoza) came around and poured water over our hands for us to wash them as she caught the water in a bowl. Then she unwrapped a large platter filled with delicious food: cassava (a roasted root), pocho (a meal of corn like finely ground grits served as a firm paste), beans (similar to our refrained beans), mashed peas, and chicken. I are everything but left the chicken, too humbled to accept such an expensive delicacy. Everything was delicious, and makes me want traditional Ugandan food rather than the American food available at the hotels and restaurants.

Nancy's trusted helper Renaldo and Charles did a good job translating for the ladies, who speak Lau (pronounced Lu), the language of the Acholi people. These people are primarily farmers, although they mine rock when it is found on their property and fish when possible. Charles took me to a local market and showed me the produce of his community. Other than the dried fish and gigantic ocra, it looked very appetizing.

On the boda-boda, Charles explained to me that several thousand acres of the land through which we were traveling belongs to his family, who had recently decided as a tribe to begin selling 150-acre lots to interested investors. I thought it might be a great place to start or expand a ministry. Charles said he grew up a sponsored child of the Watoto Church, and has aspirations toward political office, which he demonstrated well as he spoke to the group of various-aged women though only a youth of twenty-two himself. A business major at the local Gulu University, he was well spoken regarding what it would take to build a women's center or cultivate a piece of property for the ladies' benefit. He knew how many bricks and how many shillings per brick it would take to make the group's dream a reality. With an iron in every fire, he was an enterprising young man and showed a lot of promise. In 2015, he even plans to build and open a nursery school, which he plans to expand to primary school grades in the future. Also, ladies, watch out! He's in the market for an American wife.   🙂

Back at the Cardoza home, I busily washed out my reddish-orange clay-stained outfit, then showered in what was no longer solar-warmed water, while the girls warmed breakfast leftovers for dinner. We talked until Nancy could no longer hold her eyes open and then we discussed our dawn departure the next day and scurried off to bed. These short stays are less invasive to generous hosts, but heartbreaking when time to say goodbye draws near.

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Day Seven, April 21:

Up before dawn which, at the equator, is always 7am, we finally got to experience one of the infamous Ugandan power outages. We were told that it had been an Easter miracle that our power had only been off for a few hours one night while we were sleeping, but now it was out for real, and just as we were needing to pack and leave. Laurie Dickerson, Carol's houseguest, had the place nicely illuminated with candles, and was browning toast in a skillet on a gas-burning stove for us. Laurie is a missionary herself, a pastor of the Four Square Church. She has been quite the helper and well of advice and anecdotal reference. She let us know when our plans were too crazy to be carried out, but I think we left Carol and Laurie both fairly convinced we were crazy, maybe just crazy enough.

It was tough to say goodbye, but Anthony's urging and his warning that we really needed to arrive in Gulu by dark was enough to get us going. It seemed like such a short stay!

As we left the Fort Portal area, we left behind the wealth and cleanliness of their community too. I noticed even the soil seemed less rich, as the clay began to turn from a dark red to a more yellow orange. The clothing of the people we passed got dingier and a little more tattered, though it was still dresses, trousers and dress shirts, short-sleeved ones began to appear, some with holes torn in them from wear and t-shirts began to show up in greater number. The houses got a little farther apart, and a little more run-down, and I felt like we had crossed over into a more rural Uganda.

20140423-163918.jpgAs Cindy and I began to doze Anthony woke us up with the call, "baboons!" There along the side of the road as we crossed through the Budongo Forest, was a group of baboons, pretty as you please! Neither Cindy nor I could get to a camera fast enough to prove it, but Anthony assured us they would be along the road in several places. Sure enough, eight million potholes later, as we wound our way through the clay obstacle course that passes for a road in Northwest Uganda, as we skirted the Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda's largest game park, we encountered dozens of baboons, all lining the highway as if on display. A few seemed as interested in us as we were in them, but we didn't stop, and we kept in mind the advice we got from Laurie earlier: don't open your windows around baboons no matter what. Apparently baboons are very curious and also aggressive.

20140423-163858.jpgWe crossed the Nile River and were both surprised to see a beautifully roaring river over rocks and falls, rather than the long sleepy hippo watering hole we had both pictured in our heads. I guess the Congo River Rapids ride at Busch Gardens was named for this part, not the sweet stream that gently brought Moses to Pharaoh's daughter. Speaking of Congo, we spent the day paralleling the mountain chain that separates D. R. Congo from Uganda. We could only imagine what was going on just the other side of those mountains.

After we crossed the Nile was when I think we began seeing the round mud huts with thatched grass roofs one sees in storybooks about African people. These huts, though, were really neatly made, most appeared cleanly kept, and efficient for their purpose and the climate. I was amazed at how nice some were. Painted with solid doors, some had clothes lines strung between them. Others had laundry drying right on the grass roof. Seeing the ventilation and the thick layers of grass used in the construction, I began to feel sorry for the folks in rectangular brick houses under tin roofs in the equatorial sun.

As we neared our destination much earlier than we had feared, Anthony announced he was hungry much to my relief. We stopped at a roadside restaurant in Kamdini and had some chicken and rice to tide us until supper. Nancy Cordoza, our Gulu hostess, had prepared us dinner so we kept our late lunch light. It was a compromise for me to eat at a roadside restaurant, given the health concerns, but I prayed extra fervently over it and God kept it from being a problem. Cindy, however, had exhausted our supply of G-nuts while we weren't looking, and was too full for roadside fare. She amused herself taking pictures of me taking the adventuresome risk.

Nancy met us at a landmark hotel near her house because (and she is not the first) meeting us and directing us in was easier than giving directions on unnamed (or at least unmarked) roads. When we arrived at her compound, we were shocked at the aesthetic appeal. Even the walls and gates were ornate. The house was no different. Nancy explained the rental process and the fact there are no public utilities was how she found such a bargain, but she makes a lack of refrigeration and laundry work well for her, and we found it comfortable too. Cooking with gas, assisted by a pressure cooker, she prepared us a Ugandan dinner of beans, rice, chicken, bananas, and odie (G-nut sauce).

She made her home our own as she described her ministry to the local Acholi women. She is currently running a quilting group and looking for marketing venues in the U.S. And Canada, to help the women support themselves. She showed us some of the quilts and they were very nice. This group meets on Tuesdays, so we will join them tomorrow.

I got to talk to my daughter briefly tonight, in an attempt to resolve my banking issue, but it's way past bedtime. So good night.

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Day Five, April 19:

Normally nine hours of road travel would be a bland tale. Even as a kid I remember the car bingo games to make the time pass on long car trips. Today, however, was eventful, educational, eye-opening, and heart-warming.

20140420-212404.jpgAs we passed from the Buganda territory into the Tooro kingdom, we noticed a change in the landscape, which became more mountainous. There were more and bigger farms with more apparent organization. The strings of markets had longer gaps between them, and seemed to team with greater numbers of people when we arrived at them. In between those markets and the beautiful farms were some of the most primitive looking houses we have seen. Many looked like so many we passed before, but I became aware today that what I thought were market booths were merely the front of what served as homes to the families of those who operated them. Then I began to see less equipped homes, some just sticks and mud, others even woven papyrus mats or grass thatch huts. Surrounding them were families, all gathering for the Easter holiday when, traditionally, families return home to spend time together feasting. Butcheries were popular as folks prepared for the holiday, with most drawing crowds forming lines as a butcher hacked away at a side of beef right at the roadside. I saw a man dragging a steer's head down the road, using its horns as skis to help him drag the weighty load. Anthony explained that the head would be boiled and the meat used for stew. The poverty I witnessed today made me ashamed to be such a self-indulgent, wealthy person, so oblivious to the lives lived by the less privileged. It would get worse before the day was over.

On our way to Fort Portal, however, we got to drive through the Queen Elizabeth National Park, a game preserve. We saw wild elephants, impalas, water buffalo, and some kind of antelope the name of which neither Cindy nor I could remember. Let me tell you, I never imagined we would ever see such things without going on a game drive, and I honestly never imagined we would do that either, so this was a big deal! Especially the elephants. Cindy loves elephants like kindergartners love ice cream. It was an exciting bit of travel!

As we neared Fort Portal, things cleaned up, and it was apparent this was a wealthier region. We found our destination without any trouble and I was amazed at the size and structure of it. Carol Adams, our sweet host, greeted us like family and showed us around the facility of the Youth Encouragement Services (Y.E.S.) hostel, office, and her home. The ten-room, forty-six bed hostel helps to fund the children's home, situated on another property in the village. The home, she explained, nurtures thirty children who suffer from AIDS, a condition that stigmatizes them as "throw away" children. "Why bother caring about you? You're walking dead anyway," Carol described the sentiment regarding such kids. She showed us pictures, however, of kids thriving under the care of the home, and reported of many adopted out and living full, healthy lives in loving homes. In addition to the thirty AIDS inflicted residents of the home, Carol oversees the external project, which ensures that some three hundred children attend school and have necessary supplies, and then follows their progress to ensure the kids do not neglect the gift. By her description she is called by some "the mean Mzungu (white) momma" but is respected by all of them, because they are well aware of her maternal love for all of them. She showed us pictures and told stories of how her love for these people has returned to her in any number of public demonstrations and of quiet gestures. Love like we observed in the heart of this woman and heard in the reports of the objects of her affection gave little doubt that we were in the presence of a heroine of the Kingdom of God, and a pioneer of Christ's loving mercy in these parts.

Carol had a delivery to make, a gift of holiday money from a former employee to a family of twenty-three orphans overseen by their grandmother, who had lost nine of her thirteen children. We went along. As we started out down the washed out clay road, it was good we were in a four-wheel drive truck, a twenty-two year old Suzuki Nomade. No mere car could've made this trip. When we pulled up to the house I remembered some of the stick and mud homes I had seen and thought this was much nicer than it could be. The outside was smooth with defined edges and paint, but was far too small to imagine twenty-three orphans dwelling in it. The inside had concrete floors, and four rooms: one tiny common area, a dark room to either side, one for boys and one for girls, and another room off the girls' room for "Mamma" the old woman who raised all these grandchildren. In each of the bedrooms there were only three or four beds, but several sleep together in each. Outside and behind the house, there was a structure of sticks with a low metal roof. Painted on the side was the word, "kitchen," which I thought strange considering only the oldest kids spoke any English at all, and that was very little. The kitchen was just a dark covered space where a fire was burning at one end, and an empty pot was burning on the coals. There was a pen adjacent to the kitchen, but no livestock in it, although from the smell there had been something recently. The worst, most impoverished housing I have ever seen in the U.S., even in all my years working the lowest income parts of Jacksonville, were palatial compared to this. The children who were there gathered for a quick photo for the visiting Bzungu (white people) and the older ones thanked us for visiting. Our tour guide had been a girl of fifteen both Carol and I suspected of being pregnant, but who seemed intent on trying to hide it. As we left we discussed the old woman's failing health, lack of self-care, refusal to seek Western medical attention, and dependence on traditional herbalists. Upon her demise, the children will be left to fend for themselves, eating what they grow and doing what they can to survive. Three of the twenty-three are in school because of the Y.E.S. program and have a chance at success.