soroti

I finally took a trip to soroti. I tried to take in all the information and emotions, but even so I doubt I will be able to convey it sufficiently to you. This story may take a while so sit back with your good coffee and your humor and let me tell you of my trip.

First of all, this is Africa. So my trip was delayed 1-2 days. Saturday I packed my bags with everything I thought I would need to go to a remote area of northern Uganda. Meds, tanktops, shorts, a skirt, honey sticks, camera, bible, that sort of thing. Calvin asked me to meet the them at the jinja road so I took a boda to that intersection and waited for the others to make their way thru traffic. Every boda and taxi passing on the busy roads offered me a ride. The taxis waiting at that intersection for passengers asked over and over “where are you going? You take taxi?”. I maintained that I was going with friends. One man kept staring at me so I greeted him. He just shook his head and smiled; he didn’t understand English. I tried lugandan, “odio-tia”. Aha, he asked me something in lugandan. My turn to shake my head and smile. We both just stood smiling at our impasse. Another man walked up and asked if I was born again. Yes, I am born again. Timothy the Christian and I stood agreeing about the basic tenants of Christianity until Calvin and the others picked me up. Bus stops here become adventures for mzungus.

For the long car ride north, calvin and his assistant Hannah took the front seats, Kevin and I in the back and his girls jael and hallie in the way back. They alternated arguing as only sisters can and sleeping. Outside the car hills rolled past, covered with sugar cane or tea bushes. Then comes a jungle. Then papyrus fields. Ugandan countryside cannot be described as boring except by the blind. Grass, trees, and bushes all different colors of green. Sometimes flowers sprinkle the trees or grasses. “cultivated” land springs up anywhere with no apparent order. Usually a village of thatched roofs stands nearby. Goats, or chickens, even pigs wander around without any sort of constraint. Herds of cattle usually have a shepherd wearing rubber boots and wielding a stick. And people are everywhere; on the road, next to the road, in the fields. Bikes and bodas also ride everywhere. Cars, taxis, large trucks and also cargo trucks carrying people as much as actual cargo claim most of the road. Everyone tries to pass anyone slower than them. One of the trucks had the motto written across it; A’m the leader of the leaders. I laughed as we passed that truck. The farther north, the more bodas become bikes with a cushion on the back instead of motorcycles.

Then I looked up at the horizon. And behold, there rose mountains under the clouds. I love mountains. So when I saw those mountains joy rose inside me also. I have missed mountains. Sadly I couldn’t see the highest one because of the clouds. As we drove, I could see individual storms dropping sheets of rain over the countryside. After we drove thru a storm, we could see a rainbow. Hannah told us there is a childhood myth that when it rains and the sun also shines, hyenas give birth. I wonder why that myth connects those things.

After the mountain faded into the distance, I started seeing rock outcroppings. They rise out of flat fields randomly. These rocks either gather in tall hills with boulders rolling down the sides, or stretch barely higher than the grass. All of it has a worn look; no rough edges or moss, just looks like the rocks have been worn by weather for ages. Soroti rock is simply a higher form of these. I want to climb it next time I go.

We dropped Kevin and the girls off with our American friends. Calvin said he wanted to take me to the village, but we ended up staying at the soroti hotel because it rained too hard to travel to the village. However, I was ok with this since the hotel had hot water for showers. I turned in early partly, ok, mostly to take a long hot shower. Not sure if I could have enjoyed that as much if I hadn’t gone without hot water for 6 weeks. I don’t know how to describe the bliss of stretching in warm water. Also, my parents called me and we talked for over an hour. The next morning my sis called me. Yay family chatting.

We didn’t make it to church Sunday. I had been hearing threats of mandatory preaching from whites who visit the village. Im ok with having more time to prepare my speech. Also, as I had mentioned to calvin, freedom is a large part of my faith. Freedom to do or not to do. Like drinking; I have the freedom to drink because I have to freedom to stop.

Anyways, calvin wanted to wait for a driver before setting out to the village since he was tired of driving. After a bit of convincing, he agreed to let me drive to the village and back. Yay. Hannah directed me while calvin sat in the back speaking ateso with his friend. Driving in Uganda is backwards. All the controls for the driver are mirror image to how they should be. Not to mention they drive on the wrong side of the road here. I tried the turn signal; the windshield wipers started full blast. For some reason I quietly sang a song from “the Gods must be Crazy II”. Remember when the African dude rides a bike around the desert singing that wordless song? That’s my soundtrack for driving in Africa. That is between dodging bicyclists, cows, and kids. Its more off-roading than driving. Hannah; turn here. Me; where. Finally I saw a foot path and what could be a tire track next to it.

The village does not look like what I expected. Painted cement huts with thatched roofs sit around bigger cement buildings with metal roofs. Nice cut grass yard and raised stone walkways connect all the buildings in a circle. Hannah taught me how to greet people in ateso; “yoga” “yoga-noi” “be-abba” “jackana”. I messed it up a lot which thankfully they found hilarious. I went for a short walk to look around the peaceful countryside after we all gathered in the blue roof building. Its one huge room with tables and chairs, wood planks for some project, a generator, and a nesting chicken. Gotta have the chicken. On the way back from my walk, a very old woman greeted and blessed me in her language. I felt her bless me. She followed me into the main room where calvin interpreted between us. When I asked, he explained that this wasn’t his grandma, but his father’s first wife and a very strong Christian. I met a lot of the wives of pilgrim people in the village. They fed us tea and snacks, then lunch at 4:30. The whole time I stayed there I ate only Ugandan food; cassava, millet, millet porridge for breakfast, lemon tea, rice, and really good goat. They fed us again later that night.always lots of food.

Hannah, one of the men, and I went mango picking. They lent me gum boots for the occasion since my sandals wouldn’t work well for the mud. (I only brought summer clothing expecting the normal hot weather. I was actually cold and wanting a jacket most of the time.) the man who brought me the boots commented on how big his feet were(size 9) and how they fit him cuz he was a big man … I couldn’t figure out if he was joking or not. Some of these people don’t speak English. Until then, I had been talking with people who spoke the trade language English. We walked among fields of crops and little mud and thatched villages looking for good mango trees. The others threw things at the mangos to bring them down. I decided to climb the tree like the kids to get the mangos, but I didn’t get very far up in my gum boots. Suddenly I became an even bigger sensation. One girl started following me so I offered her my hand to walk with me since she was going to stare the entire time anyways. That evening I spent several hours talking with Hannah and the men about everything. It felt like a college bonfire without the immaturity and alcohol. Beware; know all the definitions of your English words before discussing in a different country. They may use a less obvious definition for a word. Like “believe”; to them “to believe in” means “to worship”. I meant to ask if they accepted the existence of something. I got to describe walking on ice, Midwest winters, and mountains to them in amongst the theology discussions. I noticed calvin’s mother sitting nearby but out of conversation range watching her son. It must be hard for a mother to see her son only a few times a year and the rest of the time in an alien country.

Listening to the conversation I understood something my professor at Hillsdale once taught us; Africans prefer circles to straight lines. Villages are circles, not intersecting lines like American towns. Their discussions tend to go in circles, discussing all areas before arriving back at the start of the topic, maybe going around again while adding another’s comments. But it isn’t circular reasoning, just circular discussions.

I drove back the next morning. They have one of the best roads up there, sadly it is made out of the stone from one of their hill-landmarks. I spent some time Phyllis at the school having quite a good talk. Probably more about that later. We finally picked up Kevin and his girls somewhere in soroti. Btw, soroti has a population of about 50,000 in a town the size of Colville or Hillsdale. Jael complained that they had been calling the driver for 2 hours while they waited. “Jael, repeat after me, TIA – this is Africa.” We drove back watching the storms drive across the land, and driving thru the storms. We saw one truck overturned with all its passengers hiding from the rain behind it. Also, halfway to kampala, we found a chicken in a black bag in the car – alive. TIA baby, just TIA.