Dear family, friends, and secret blog stalkers (I know you're out there),
Okay so maybe I'm the worst blogger in the history of bloggers. It's been almost a month since I last wrote haha. So let's see. I need to tell you about my rural homestay. I told you we went to Kapchurwa, an area in Eastern Uganda in the mountains. First of all, the weather was absolutely marvelous. For the first time since I've been here, I slept without sweating. The nights were gloriously cool and it rained every day. The area if breathtaking. Several days, my sister and I along with Alex and Taryn (two USP students who lived less than a minute from me) and their sisters went hiking and saw gorgeous waterfalls and streams. Our favorite spot was on top of a hill where we could see for endless miles while we watched water cascade over a waterfall right below us. One day the clouds opened up and the sun hit the waterfall just right producing the most fantastic rainbow I have ever seen. I can't even begin to describe the beauty to you. It was really a great week. Having Alex and Taryn near me helped with the loneliness. I had a 17-year-old sister named Tabitha who adored me. Her English wasn't the best, but we made do. There was a lot of smiling and nodding involved. My Momma was a teacher at a primary school nearby and my Father owned a little shop in the village center. He spent most of his time going back and forth from our village to Mbale, a big city about an hour from where we were, and securing goods and transport to bring the items back to his shop. We also raised cows, pigs, goats, and chickens. The main crops are Matooke (related to the banana family but it tastes more like a moldy potato in my humble opinion) and coffee. I had coffee for almost every meal and it was beautiful. At the end of the week we even went on a tour to see how the coffee is grown, harvested, winnowed, pounded, roasted, and then boiled. It was really cool. We made our own! My family in Kapchurwa was also a first-time host family like my family here in Mukono. The only problem this caused was having my family treat me more as an honored guest and not as a family member. The first day I went to fetch water down at the spout with my sister and carried the tiny 5L gerrycan back up the hill on my head (okay I tried and soon gave up but its the thought that counts, right?) while my sister carried this 25L giant barrel on her head. I couldn't even lift it. That day I also washed some dishes and sorted some rice. But after that, my family took to saying "No no! You sit!" whenever I would ask to help. They wouldn't even let me peel the matooke because my "hands would dirty". When I asked to go carry water again Tabitha would always say "Eh Rachel the sun is too high for you! You sit!" Then I would bring out my clothes to wash and Tabitha would look at my towels and ankle-length-skirts and say, "Um Rachel these are too big for you. You sit! Please! Let me do for you." Towards the end of the week my protests became weaker and weaker. There was no use. So I did a lot of..... sitting. Sitting. And reading. And sitting. And journaling. And sitting. But it was a good week to practice the art of just being. And I got to have some great conversations with Taryn during our 5-hour periods of sitting while our sisters ran around doing this and that.
Also really interesting is the issue of gender issues. Kapchurwa is one of the only tribes/areas in Uganda that still pretty openly practicing female circumcision or FGM as its so fondly named. This practice is illegal in Uganda and declared inhumane by the UN but it is a main part of the culture in the area where we were. Along with FGM were other gender-role issues that really bothered me. Here's an excerpt from an email I sent a good friend about what I experienced:
"Gender issues at my rural homestay were even worse than what I've experienced here in Mukono area. Kapchurwa is like a bad "woman-make-me-a-sandwich" joke. The women have to kneel to greet the men. And the men eat out of different dishes and even sit at a different table at mealtimes. When it's not planting or harvesting season, the men literally do nothing. They sit. All-freaking-day. While the women carry gallons of water up the hill on their heads and spend all day sweeping, washing clothes, washing dishes, or cooking in the smoke-congested kitchen. I asked my 18-year-old cousin there if he wanted to help me peel matooke and he laughed at me and said that was "woman's work". I almost punched him in the face. So I asked him what a man's work was and he was like "....to eat. and have pleasure." So needless to say, slightly angering. But even weirder that the women don't seem to mind. Like they've never known differently so they honestly don't complain or yearn for freedom."
As someone who views herself as pretty independent and a free-thinker, a lot of the things I saw during my rural homestay were frustrating. But we're cautioned not to see Western culture as "right" and Ugandan culture as "wrong" or "backwards". But where is the line? One of my coordinators here was saying that she's lived in Uganda for 4 years and still isn't comfortable with the fact that she sometimes needs to kneel to men while a Ugandan man will never ever ever EVER kneel to a woman. She was saying that even if she lived here the rest of her life, that fact would still bother her. The view of women here can easily escalate into the men seeing them as more of property, especially since they literally "buy" the women from her parents in the practice of bride price. Seeing women as property, in turn, can lead to beating and other forms of abuse. Not good.
Since rural homestays nothing much has been happening. I returned to my family in Mukono and life is good. Luganda is over so I have very little homework besides reading for African Literature (which I'm LOVING) and some small assignments for Faith and Action. This leaves me with a lot of time to hang out with my family and other USP students and go into Kampala and things like that. I'm liking the slow pace of life here. I'm not at all ready to go back home.
