Uganda Through the Senses

I originally wanted to write so much more about Uganda and now I fear my memories are growing dimmer and dimmer. Here is an attempt at collecting some of my impressions of the country in short phrases and snippets. I could write at least one blog entry on each of these comments, but for now, this list will have to suffice.

What I Saw:
Abandoned pit latrines covered in maggots and flies.
Malnourished children with potbellies protruding from their torn cotton shirts.
Children playing in polluted streams, alongside trash and agricultural waste.
School girls, shaved heads a-glisten, wearing Sunday church dresses from the 1950s.
At the trainings: Africans in full business suits, Europeans in short sleeves and slacks.
The university’s dingy hallway laboratory: a few tables and supplies, no real equipment.
Minivan-taxis without seatbelts but with inside-panel handlebars, just in case.
NGOs and missionary settlements at every corner, especially on the border to Sudan.
Supposedly temporary mud and reed huts for families internally displaced from the Lord’s Resistance Army. Is twenty years of displacement truly “temporary”?
Billboard campaigns warning against “sugar daddies” and HIV/AIDS.
Bold front-page slogan of the Daily Monitor newspaper: “Truth everyday.”

What I Heard:
“Good morning, Madame. How are you, Madame?”
At least five languages being spoken at any one moment.
Roosters crowing at 4:00 in the morning.
Babies crying from hunger.
Monkeys calling to each other and leaping between branches of mahogany trees.
Mangoes dropping from trees onto the ground in a rare midnight rain- and windstorm.
“The electricity is out this morning.”
The rush of rapids over the Nile River
“The electricity is out this afternoon.”
Stories of Idi Amin’s reign from those who lived through it and of those who did not.

What I Smelled:
Flowers of infinite variety.
The stench of abandoned pit latrines.
Insect repellent to ward off malarial mosquitoes.
Sunblock constantly reapplied throughout the day.
The clay earth after a gentle rain.
Sweet, hot milk and sugar for afternoon tea.

What I Tasted:
Sweet, steamed bananas in matooki
Mangoes
Pineapples
Watermelon
Passionfruit
African tea, close competitor to chai for the best black tea on earth
Maize meal
Basmati rice
Chapatti bread
G-nuts, later clarified as “ground peanut sauce”
A sip of restaurant tap water by mistake – either I have a strong immune system or I was very, very lucky because the water did not make me sick.

What I Felt and Sensed:
Eight hours of constant potholes, driving from central to northern Uganda.
Panic when driving on the left side of the road for the first time in my life – surely, we would crash!
The mesh of my first mosquito net. (Does this thing really work?)
Shame for staying at guest houses (ho(s)tels)—like British royalty—when we were supposed to be working together with the local community members.
The constant struggle as a US-American to understand African English.
The pride of the high school senior who taught her classmates to use ecosan toilets and how to compost the waste for fertilizer.
The power imbalance between European “researchers” and East African “project partners”.
Mixed feelings.
A constant internal comparison between our ROSA team and Engineers Without Borders – similar technical topics with completely different management styles.
Solidarity between ROSA team members. Regardless of how long this project takes, we are making a tangible difference in East African sanitation.
A wariness of labeling all things Ugandan “exotic”, as if US-European customs were the “norm”.
The inadequacy of two weeks working vacation to actually experience Uganda, whatever that may mean.
The desire to go back – both to Uganda and to other African countries. In Europe, I am an expert on Uganda; in Uganda, I have so much more to learn.