Tugudeo!

5.28.08

(Tugudeo, luganda: We are back!)

After a brief safari intermission and two days of business in Kampala, we were back on the boda bodas for research for the first time in a week. Weird that I really feel back at home on the boda boda. I loved riding around. Today I didn’t have Johnny, my usual driver; our partnerships were switched up with the school assignments for today, so I had Ahcef (really have no idea how to spell that) drive me around. Ahcef is hilarious, and thinks I am too, so it was a pretty good match. He speaks more English than Johnny, so he’s able to teach me some more Luganda phrases. He’s pretty chatty actually, and didn’t like it when I got quiet. “Bethan, are you sleeping?” he would ask intermittently. “Nope, Ahcef, just… y’know… lookin’ around…” (There’s only so much to say during an entire day on the boda boda, Ahcef, cut me some slack! Plus, I don’t like having to shout to be heard and have you repeat everything you say since I barely catch anything after the collective filter of your accent, the wind at 20 km/hr, and the fact that you’re facing away from me as you speak. Could you wait till we’re still and facing each other? Ha.)

So even though tomorrow will be my one month mark here in Uganda, this week is the first week that we’ve been able to visit schools that are in session and full of students, since our first couple of weeks happened to be when the schools were on holiday. What a difference it makes when they’re full of kids, because these schools are pretty dang depressing when they appear to be abandoned. And lemme tell ya, some of the schools we’ve managed to track down look like they haven’t been in session for ages, let alone just on holiday for a few weeks. So today we visited a pretty humble highschool of about 200 students in the neighboring town of Seeta. The headteacher who we spoke with was very amiable and eager to help us with our research, and afterwards, requested that we make the rounds to each of the classes to… well, we weren’t quite sure…introduce ourselves and say hi? We didn’t exactly know what the headteacher wanted from us, because he would interrupt a class, explain that he had some visitors, and then motion for us to come in, at which point Lauren and I would greet them in Luganda (which they definitely get a kick out of—they always do. I’m not sure if their surprise is a function of the fact that a white person is actually speaking in their native tribal language, or the fact that we probably sound ridiculous. Maybe both). We told them our names, explained that we were university students from the United States and that we came to Uganda specifically to visit their school. We told them that we loved their school and that we also love to study and were so happy to see so many dedicated students, encouraging them to continue to work hard. This seemed to be enough, because although Lauren and I may have anticipated a room full of blank stares, at this point the room would erupt in monstrous applause….

So since schools are back in session, about half the people in our house are gone. This makes things around the house a whole lot quieter, and Lauren and me sad. Things are pretty much uneventful around here, except for something that happened last night. Lauren and I had come home from our day and were sitting in our room working on some things for research when we heard a debacle between some of the girls outside. Since just about any conversation in Luganda is shouted and thus sounds like an argument, we didn’t think much of it initially. Things seemed to be escalating after a few minutes, so we came out to the balcony to check out what was happening below. Latifah, seemingly the sweetest, shyest, most quiet 14-yr-old girl I have ever met (she averts her eyes when I look at her and refuses to speak to me) was really going at it with this other girl who we had never seen before. All of a sudden this girl started swinging at Latifah, who had a large knife in her hand—she was preparing dinner. Latifah stood up and began swinging too, and I panicked because there were several others—including small children—standing around. The knife went flying and Madinah, a house servant, quickly darted across the cement to swipe it. Fatumah grabbed Baby Nasser to take him a good distance away. 4-yr-old Hamzah began to cry and tried to come to Latifah’s rescue. No one tried to step in. Before I knew it, Lauren had turned around to go down stairs and get involved, and I followed. I don’t know exactly what came over me, but I apparently adopted my most angry-Ugandan-woman voice when I came through the door upon the girls and screamed at them. I suppose I thought that if these girls saw that their (white) guests were present they would knock it off. Lauren told me later that I scared her, but unfortunately I didn’t have the same effect on the thrashing girls, because Lauren and I struggled to tear them apart from each other. They were actually pretty skilled at not hurting us as they attempted to continue swinging at (or hurling shoes at) one another. I’m actually not sure our interference did much. As Lauren and I left the compound, they were still shouting at each other in Luganda. When we came back later that night, we asked Fatumah what had happened, but she didn’t seem to know what the disagreement was all about. In fact, no one did, and we were told that Latifah would not open her mouth about it to anyone for about a week. We know that if we approached Latifah about it we wouldn’t get an answer out of her—she’s extremely good at evading any sort of verbal interaction—so we have been begging the other girls to get the story, which we feel we’re owed. It became our business once we stepped in, and we can’t for the life of us imagine what would have driven either one of the girls—but particularly Latifah—to fight the way they did.

English phrases commonly heard in Uganda:
“Safe journey!”
“Nice time!”
“You are very welcome,” (as a salutation, not in response to “thank you”)
“Yes please,” (a solitary “yes” is rarely offered, as in, “So, if you could put your signature here—” “Yes please,” “Are you a private school?” “Yes please,” “Do you have flushing toilets?” “Yes please” And then I think to myself, Okay, so wait. Yes you do have flushing toilets, or yes you would like to have flushing toilets? “Um, do you have pit latrines or flushing toilets at your school?” “Yes.”)

and my favorite:
“Nice church … wait can you say that?” –Jamilah
“Well, you can say: Have a nice time at church,” –me. Actually, the rest of the students and I have started to adopt these abbreviated phrases. Sometimes “Have a nice time at church” just takes too long to get out—why say something in six syllables when two get your point across just fine? :)