Visit to Stella

Last Saturday Stella, the woman who cleans and does our laundry, invited us to a bazaar at her girls' school. Actually it's her husband's school as well because he teaches there. They live on the school campus in housing the school provides. Stella had asked us several times to visit, so this seemed like a good opportunity. We may not have mentioned yet that few streets have street signs to mark them and fewer houses have numbers, so finding places is dicey. We knew Stella lived across town, but since Jill, a young architect with EMI, was going too, we figured we could get there.

We started off at 9:30 Sat. morning. Paul and I harbored a secret hope that we'd be back in time to still go out for coffee, our Saturday routine, by early afternoon. Hah. The drive to Stella's took an hour and a half. We took a shared taxi, the ubiquitous 14-passenger vans, into the downtown taxi park and got stuck in market day traffic. When we got to the taxi park, which is the definition of organized chaos if there ever was one, we found the taxi that goes to Stella's, but then we had to wait for it to fill up before the driver would leave. When it was full the driver figured out that the taxi parked next to us was at the wrong angle for us to be able to pull out. The driver of the other van was AWOL, but some guys got it into neutral and moved it back about 8" so we could pull forward. We went about two yards, but then there was another taxi perpendicular to us blocking our way. This doesn't seem to bother anybody. They deal with each impediment as it presents itself.

Anyway, eventually we got out of the taxi park and to Stella's. This school is larger and nicer than the one where Janet, EMI's cook, and her husband live and where we had visited a few weeks ago. We hurried to a grassy field where the students were singing and dancing before the bazaar. We were late, but we hoped to catch at least a little of the music. We needn't have hurried. We sat through 3 1/2 hours of singing, dancing, and speeches. Unfortunately, there were a lot more speeches than there was singing and dancing. People in Uganda tend to be flowery in their speech by Western standards, and floweryness takes time. Fortunately, we were seated under canopies or the heat would have been brutal. Really, the music was amazing, and if we just could have watched the kids it would have been an enjoyable afternoon. But...let's say it was a valuable cultural experience that we hope to never have to sit through again.

Stella took us to her apartment when it was over and fed us lunch. She served similar food to what Janet cooks for us at EMI every day: matoke (cooked mashed plantains) and rice over which you put a meat or peanut sauce, vegetables and fruit. It's a good and filling lunch. Stella cooked green beans and carrots just for us. For some reason plain vegetables are considered mzungu (white) food. It was hilarious to see her girls gamely attempt to eat a plain green bean but give up. It was just too strange for them.

Stella's house was similar in size and arrangement to Janet's but with two rooms instead of one. The front room was partitioned in two with a sheet. There was just room in the "sitting room" for a couch and chair lined up, a coffee table, and a chest with a t.v. and boom box on it. Behind the sheet was a bunkbed. We didn't see the second room, but it must have had the kitchen and more beds. Stella, her husband, five daughters, and her sister-in-law all live in this small space. Stella's daughters range in age from 11 to 1.

Finally we went to the bazaar. The girls had made baskets, napkins, cards and quite a few other things to sell to raise money. We bought a little, visited briefly with Stella's husband Peter, and then took off shortly after that, arriving home about five. No coffee for us that day.

Looking back on it, we were happy to have visited Stella, but we find days like that draining. Although we feel like we're learning our way around, there are still so many things that we don't know how they're supposed to work or what is expected of us. We always stand out. We were the only whites at the school, the only whites on the taxi, the only whites most places we go. People are nice to us, but you can never be inconspicuous and sometimes you just want to blend in.

This week Paul is up visiting the Ngenge villages, his primary focus for his time here. We've only been able to talk briefly, but things are going well. Rev. Rusty, the minister from the Episcopalian congregation in Alabama which is supporting the work, is there too. Paul met with a well driller today that he hopes will work for them in the area, and he also surveyed more of the villages and found out their needs. He'll get home on Tuesday and I'm sure will post details after that.