Day 16 - The New Year

01/01/09

Today was fun. I got up early, did my last load of laundry, and then headed to town. Only one supermarket was open, and I bought a kilo of sugar and a kilo of flour. Then I headed to BCC, paying a good price because at this point, I think I give off the impression of a muzungo who knows his way. When I got to BCC, I discovered that most people had taken “leave” for the day but there were some nurses, nurse’s aides, and Dr. Wafula. We went on rounds, saw the usual innumerable cases of malaria, pneumonia, malnutrition, etc. At 1pm, Paul Toboti, Maital’s and Adam’s friend, picked me up from BCC to go to his house for a New Years meal. We walked to his village which must have been a mile+ away, in the beating sun, as I carried my multi-pound backpack thinking we were taking a boda. We arrived at his house which is a small mud/cement hut with a tin roof. I met his family, which included children of various ages ranging from mid-twenties to an infant. Paul told me that his parents died of AIDS so he and his siblings went to live with their uncle, who then died of AIDS, then to the next uncle, who died of AIDS. So the children were split to different homes but were still underfed and felt they belonged together. Paul lived with his grandmother who also died. When he was old enough and after many of the children were sponsored by generous donors, they arranged to build this small house so all the children, cousins, etc could live together. I’m not sure of the total number but in a 4 room hut, I met at least 7 people. This hut was in a village and the children came from old-school village culture, so the girls kneeled on the floor when they greeted me and ate on the floor in a different room. They served rice, matoke, and fish. I may have told a white lie to dismiss myself from eating the fish, something regarding a bad stomach and I felt terrible about it but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat the fish. And it was so much worse because they had meat for themselves for the celebratory meal but made fish for me because they knew I could not eat their meat. I felt so terrible every second but I felt it was the only way and better than gagging on the fish when force-feeding it to myself. Before we dug in, I was asked to say thanks to G-d. I’ve been asked before and politely declined but I already felt too guilty to say no. So now I had to figure out how to pull this off. As everyone closed their eyes and lowered their heads, the world seemed to go completely silent; there was not even a sound made by the goat or chickens outside. I hesitated for a few seconds and then said “Blessed are you , our G-d, King of the universe, who creates species of nourishment,” the exact translation of the hebrew blessing before eating grains like rice. Then, in keeping with the tradition of not making any interruption between blessing food and eating it, I made a perfunctory glance around the room, saw all eyes closed and heads down, and snuck a bite of rice into my mouth. I swallowed quickly and then continued with something they were more used to, something along the lines of “and thank you for providing us with this food and bringing us together on the beginning of this new year and bless these people who have taken me in and treated me like family, etc.” I don’t think anyone got wind of my Jew-move and I was pretty proud of pulling it off. They told me afterward that the blessing was beautiful.
I was given a fork to eat with but everyone else ate old-school style, removing food from the big plate with their right hands and delivering it straight into their mouths. I was honored as the American guest to have utensils but honestly, I wanted to be absorbed in the culture so I put down my fork and joined them, which they thought was pretty funny. Paul showed me pictures of his Ugandan family and his American family (Maital’s family, who came to visit when she and Adam were here). I had a great time and when I left, everyone over 17 y/o walked me to the road. Then Paul walked me down the road a bit until a boda motorcycle drove by, which I boarded (with a word from Paul to the driver about driving slowly and safely), and took to town. I went to the market which I had heard so much about and was slightly disappointed. The only other market I have seen has been the shuk in Israel, which is 100x better than this market. Now I understand that this is a town in a third-world country as opposed to a major city in a first-world country, but still I wanted a market. This was a number of old ladies sitting under umbrellas in the sun selling matoke, bananas, rice, etc. There were men calling to me “muzungu, muzungu! 500 Schilling!” I don’t even know what they were selling but I guarantee, if they said muzungu before it, than it was sold to Ugandans for a tenth of the price they were calling out to me. After the market I came home and passed out until dinnertime. I can’t remember what we ate, probably some variety of rice and beans and cabbage and greens. Now it is bedtime. Not sure when I will have internet next; the people I am with, who share the account with BCC, haven’t paid January internet yet so maybe I’ll get to the internet café sometime this weekend but I don’t want to waste any time with only a few days left! Goodnight!