Entebbe

Entebbe explodes with sound in the morning.  The chittering of Red Chested Sunbirds, the guffaws of the Black and White Casqued Hornbills and the calls of dozens of other birds I haven’t identified yet.  When I wake up early and sit on the perch of the upper porch here, I am blessed with these sounds, and these sounds alone.  The 8 a.m. morning commuters with their motos, cars, trucks and boats have not yet begun their day, so I can enjoy the sounds of Uganda’s nature. 

Lake Victoria awakens with a tickle of sparkling ripples reflecting the bright, but cool African sun.  Distant islands define themselves in silhouettes, and an occasional fisherman slices the water silently in his pirogue.  Other fisherman are out as well.  Pied Kingfishers chase each other through the sky to take up their morning stations and wait so patiently to bring in that morning’s catch.  There are birds of prey that own these skies.   Each morning I sit on my porch perch, and gaze across the electric wires to the Lizard Buzzard sitting on his same perch like a sentry; such perfect posture, such a watchful eye.  Occasionally he swoops down, grasps a lizard and flies to a different perch to eat.  But he always returns to the same place on the wire for his hunting.  Yesterday he sat out there through a downpour.  The lizards had all run for cover, but hope sprang eternal with him.  He’s a cute fellow, looking more like a falcon than a buzzard (in fact his scientific name is kaupifalco monogrammicus).  Various Eagles ride the thermals overhead.  The most beautiful of them is the African Fish Eagle. 

Steve spotted a treetop so full of weavers that it looked as if it had suddenly burst out in a bright yellow blossom.  I’ve watched a pair of Hadada Ibis collecting nesting materials each morning.  My favorite of all sightings have been the Great Blue Turaco.  We see them in groups of 7 ot 8 in the evening hours.  You can hear their  call, like hollow wooden rattles, before they take off in flight from one particular tree to another distant location.  With their bright blue color, crested heads, and 30 inch wingspan, they are splendid birds that evoke excitement and a sense of blessing at just being able to see and hear them in the midst of their evening travel.

Steve and I are here for a couple of days R&R.  We are staying at the Bethany House, a small Catholic retreat center. It sits on a hillside lane overlooking the shores of Lake Victoria   During the summer months, when Father Emmanuel Kotongole is not teaching at Duke University, the center is bustling with visitors and activity.  But when he returns to Duke in the Fall, it becomes a much quieter place.  We are here with just the gardener and house administrator, and what a haven of relaxation it is!

Next door to us is the Jane Goodall Foundation.  Ever since I saw Jane interviewed on the Bill Moyer Journal, she has been one of my heroes.  Such a serene woman, and such a champion for African nature.  I must admit I’ve viewed activities at that house through my field glasses as well, but have had no sighting of any chimps nor of Jane.  Down the road to the right is the Ugandan Wildlife Education Center, lots of animal noises waft up here during various times of the day.

For my friends who are birders, I am going to list the other birds (aside from those mentioned above) we have sighted here in Entebbe:  Hammerkop; Marabou Stork (this scavenger is found in every corner of this country!  Very ugly birds with scruffy hairy heads);  Eastern Gray Plantain-eater; Blue-breasted Kingfisher; Common Bulbul; Yellow White-eye; Velvet Mantled Drongo; Pied Crow.

Imagine what a true birder could find here!

Homestay in Seeta

We are just finishing up a week of “homestay” in Seeta, Uganda. The purpose of the homestay is to provide Steve and I an opportunity for cultural immersion, and it has been that! We have not seen another muzungu (white person) all week long, have been surrounded by a welcoming extended family of cousins, aunts brothers and grandmothers, have eaten nothing but Ugandan food, and have participated with household chores such as hauling water, preparing meals and doing dishes in a set of basins. Marge has even been seen down on both knees serving tea to Steve, as it would be “impolite” to offer it on just one knee. Steve understands he is not to get used to this!




Our hostess has been Mama Kimera (pronounced Chimera). She has been most welcoming and gracious. The late Mr. Kimera, who worked for the Ministry of Justice, was a grandson of the then reigning Kabaka (King). So we have been hosted by a royal family, and treated like royalty as well.



Since Mama Kimera is of royal lineage, the family lives in a larger home and is able to afford househelp. This means that there is much more spare time in this home, than in most, for receiving visitors and visiting others. It was explained to us that visitors are seen as a blessing. The more visitors, the richer the home. So a lot of time is spent making visits and receiving visitors. Much of the spare time after dark is spent watching television. One of the most popular tv shows is “La Tormenta” a marginally acted Argentinian soap opera which is poorly dubbed in English. The story line takes place on a ranch, and the women are scantily clad in pseudo western outfits. Also popular seems to be slapstick Ugandan humor in the Lugandan language. There is a Christian channel that offers the best that the Evangelic churches of the west have to offer. Among the more cerebral offerings is the nightly news. The Kimera family regularly watches the news and is well versed in current events.



Mama Kimera is known for having raised many children of her extended family. Winnie, one of the “daughters” who spent a good part of her childhood at Mama Kimera’s accompanied us on our homestay, along with her 2 year old son, Mishak Prince Otim. Winnie’s husband, David, works for MCC as our Peace Program Officer (I might add that he is stellar at the work he does), so that is our connection for this homestay. We have met several of the other relatives who also live in Seeta. Mama Kimera’s late husband’s very younger brother, Nathan, told us that Mama Kimera had raised 15 children of the extended family.



Three boys remain at home- Andrew, Robert and Nathan. Andrew is a University student, studying business, Nathan is finishing high school, and Andrew works as a youth pastor for a church-related NGO that organizes study tours for American and European youth. They are all bright, engaging young men, well versed in local politics, and with an opinion on nearly any subject you might choose to discuss. Mama’s sister, Auntie Nampina also lives in the home along with another female relative named Zaina. Mama Kimera, sadly, just lost her youngest daughter to an asthma attack last December. Sylvia is a young woman who does much of the cooking and housework. She lives in one of the rooms out back with her darling 3 year old daughter, Shadia.



So it is in this very vibrant environment of extended family that we have been spending our week. The younger members of the family are quite fluent in English. Mama Kimera is also conversant in English, though much prefers Luganda, so we have been surrounded by a lot of the Lugandan language here as well. We have learned phrases like, “So happy to meet you”, “Thank you for the meal”, “Thank you” “My name is…” and the numbers one through 99 (though only with some difficulty).



Our day starts out by doing dishes from the night before. I seem to have assumed this task for the most part, as other members of the family and Sylvia (the househelp) are all busy doing other things and this is one of the few things I know how to do without training and supervision! So I wash the dishes in the first basin, rinse them in the second, and give them an additional rinsing in the third basin. They are then put on a metal grating to dry. All this is done in the cool of the Seeta morning outdoors in the back courtyard. Steve, meanwhile, gathers water from the storage tanks into gerry cans for our use in dishwashing and laundry. Thankfully I have been spared the task of doing laundry by hand, largely because we brought enough clothes for the entire week. We then have morning “tea”. This consists of black tea mixed with fresh….VERY fresh- as in freshly delivered by the dairy farmer- milk that has been boiled over the outdoor charcoal stove. It is fabulous! There is some type of “matoke” offered as breakfast. Matoke, the staple food, is unripened plantain, a starchy, unsweet banana. The morning matoke is usually stewed in tomaotoes and onions. The first morning it was also stewed with offals (tripe, intestines, and other organs), much to my chagrin. I tried to get away with just eating the matoke, but Winnie commented that I hadn’t tried the offals, so I was obliged, though my serving was a small one. We then do the breakfast dishes, usually Winnie and I together.



The rest of the morning is either spent visiting with each other, visiting relatives in town, receiving visitors or preparing some of the meals for the rest of the day. My participation has been in shelling beans and slicing the peel off the matoke (done only after greasing your hands to make the black juices remove more easily when completed). Steve has helped make chapattis in the afternoon for evening tea. Lunch is served anytime between noon and two pm. It consists of matoke that has been steamed in banana leaves, and some sort of stew. The stew has been chicken, beef, offal, or dried silver fish (tiny little things that look like minnows and are very salty). The stews all have a tomato base. Sometimes rice is offered, and sometimes poshoe (kind of like thick, pasty grits) is offered. Sometimes all three starches are offered at the same meal, and sometimes there are a variety of stews offered. Beans seem to be served with about a third of the meals. There is little in the way of vegetables, though today we did have stewed cabbage.



Around 5 or 6 pm we take “evening tea” which is my favorite meal of the day. The evening milk is delivered and we take black tea, this time with the addition of a wonderful herb called omijaja. The food with evening tea is something much more inviting to the western palate, consisting of any combination of roasted sweet bananas, roasted peanuts, bread and jam, popcorn, and on a couple of occasions homemade chapattis.



The boys get home from work or school between 6 and 9 pm, and then we all have dinner around 9 or even 10 pm. The offerings for dinner are similar to lunch. It is off to bed for Steve and I then, as we are not late night people. The next day is much the same.



One regret that I have is that we haven’t been able to benefit from the wonderful stories Mama Kimera must have to offer. We don’t speak Luganda, and Mama Kimera is not comfortable enough with English to recount the many chapters of her life which would be fascinating to hear. She is certainly a woman who is much revered by her family and the community at large. Hers is a home richly blessed with visitors!