The First Village Visit of 2014

To begin our work here in Uganda, we are going to have a bit of immersion the lives of people in villages where KIDO has projects going on.  Since Anthony will be interacting with pastors from these communities and I will be working directly with the farmers, it seemed to be a good idea for us to spend some time living with them.

This past Friday through Sunday we stayed with the family of Moses and Joyce in Otubet village, Amuria district.  As we drove up they ran out and welcomed us with waving flags and ululations.  (It turns out that I visited this same village when we were in Uganda in November 2012 so I recognized people at church on Sunday!)
The parents:

And the whole family (they have eight children):

To be honest, this visit was more difficult than the many village visits we did while living in Uganda before, but only because we were staying with people we did not know, while before we stayed with people who were our friends already.  It made it a bit more challenging to have conversations when none of us knew what to expect of the other.  This also caused some funny situations.

For example, we helped Moses and Joyce with clearing part of one of their fields in preparation for planting.  I don’t think they realized that we actually have experience with farming and have the endurance to work with a hoe for more than ten minutes.  We had to keep assuring them that we were fine and could keep working, but even then, they wouldn’t let us work for more than half an hour!  People on the road kept stopping to watch us.  It was surely a sight they've never seen before.

The first day, I had the interesting experience of being treated somewhat like a Ugandan woman. This had never happened to me before.  For example, I spent time in the kitchen hut with them, was offered a mat on the ground to sit on rather than a chair, and ate separately from the men.

I helped Carol, the oldest daughter, a little bit with the process of turning peanuts into peanut butter and watched the women cooking in their kitchen.

While Anthony sat with the men on chairs, I got to sit on a mat to eat with some of the ladies.

However, I learned more Ateso than Anthony did because all the young children came over after school and sat with me, teaching me one word at a time.

On Saturday, we walked to another nearby village and visited some of the people who have been assisted through KIDO’s programs.  It was good for me to meet people I'll work with and to have them meet me.  Everywhere we went, people fed us food.  We felt like all we did during the day was eat!  I also want to point out that if people in the US south think they have a monopoly on sweet tea, they have no idea.  When people served us tea that had sugar already added to it, we had trouble getting it down, it was so sweet - I finished off a cup of hot tea and there was still about a tablespoon of undissolved sugar left in the bottom of the mug!

Part of the walk took place on this old railroad.

We also learned a new game, called omwezo.  It is similar to mancala, but more complicated.

 
Later that afternoon Anthony and Geofrey (one of the KIDO field workers who came to spend the day with us and our hosts) enjoyed playing Ugandan traditional instruments together.  Here is a video of a little African beat that Geofrey taught Anthony on an instrument similar to a xylophone.

That evening, a group of musicians came to Moses’ house to practice for church.  They played and danced for at least two hours and it was the most amazing music!  It was one of the most enjoyable concerts we've ever been to and we had front row seats.

On Sunday, they played the music for the worship service too.  We love going to a church where these traditional instruments are played, rather than an electric keyboard, since the music is so beautiful and it is easier to hear the words to the songs.  Anthony preached as well which he will write about in another post.  Here are some videos of the worship songs at church:

We were surprised when Achiku Julius, who was a student at Pentecostal Bible College in Mbale while we taught there showed up at church as part of the band.  It is exciting to see all these people we know again and so often it is random and unexpected!

Some other pictures.  This is where we bathed:

Some of the buildings of the house and the rack for drying dishes:

Before we left, people from the church came to see us off.  I will be out in the fields with many of these women once the rains begin.  They were happy to hear that I love farming and am looking forward to working with them soon.

The community was incredibly generous, sending us home with matooke, bananas, oranges, peanuts, eggs, and two hens.  We hope that we can be as generous with what we have as they were to us!