Misadventures of a Canadian princess

This morning, I had sour cream and chive-flavoured Pringles for breakfast. Yesterday and the day before, I was able to cook whatever I wanted for dinner. Ahhh…the luxury of having a mini-break!

This is the third day into my six day break from working in the villages of Rubingo Parish. I’m supposed to be doing some work-related research and reporting, but so far have not mustered up any willingness to tackle the drearier tasks of this time-off. We bumpety-bumped our way into Mbarara-town on Thursday morning, with me being squished in the midst of three Ugandan staff members in the back of our Toyota Hi-Lux pickup truck. Now, I’ve been accused of having a booty, but it certainly is more of a “matooke butt”, a moniker created by Kimberly (my teammate) now that I have been eating more starch than I can ever remember. This leads to me to explore three threads of thought: ekibuuno (= butt), beans and rice everyday and driving on Ugandan backcountry roads.

First, let me discuss the booty, or mine, at least. Although not prized in North America as much as in other cultures (say, Brazilian), I have been complemented by various wonderful people about the beauty of my booty. But mine is diminutive compared to some that I’ve seen here in Uganda. I learned the meaning of ekibuuno, and it is now a term used with hilarity amongst Rose, Jovanice (the two local staff), Kimberly and myself. We call our ekibuuno “matooke butts” because we are always being fed matooke, which is a dish sacred to our Ugandan friends: mashed green plantains steamed in banana leaves. If it is soft enough, it tastes like mashed potatoes (but you have to try hard to imagine it!). We also use the name “matooke butt” to refer to the level of inactivity that can occur over the course of a week – I would describe my daily routine as more sedentary than that back home in Canada! A day would unfold like this: breakfast at 7am, ready to visit homes or widows’ groups by 8:30am, in the pickup truck and on the road by 9am, sitting in a meeting until 12:30noon, back at camp for lunch at 1pm (matooke, rice, beans), in the pickup truck again at 2:30pm to head towards another meeting and then back for chai (=afternoon tea-time) by 5pm. Of course, dinner at 7pm consists of another round of starch (matooke, posho, rice and irish potatoes). So the extent of exercise in any given day is climbing up or down the hill at camp, climbing in and out of the truck and walking to and from my meetings. Hence, matooke butt!

The second thread leads me to discuss the food I eat everyday: beans and rice, rice and beans, beans, beans and more rice! The first two weeks of adjusting to the food were interesting: we would wake up to a breakfast of…tea and boiled eggs. Lunch and dinner would invariably consist of some combination of starches: rice, posho (boiled maize flour in cake-form), matooke or potatoes. The type of bean used (chickpeas or kidney beans?) and the presence or absence of cabbage would be the only variety added to our communal meal-times. I don’t blame Rachel, our cook, for lack of imagination. But to break the sacred code of starch and beans is like forbidding a Brit from ever having another cuppa. You can imagine the level of excitement when we discovered we had goat for dinner one night…I even wrote that event down in my journal! But I have discovered that the combination of of Mrs. Dash seasoning and Top Up Tomato Sauce (say it: to-mah-to…) adds just enough flavour sensations that I look forward to the next meal of beans and rice.

The third subject is driving on backcountry Uganda roads. This is a serious matter, not to be undertaken by amateurs. Like me. Who freaked out so much on her first day of driving in the backroads. Yes, I AM a princess…and from that day forward, I have used the phrase “princessing out”, to refer to my reaction to run and hide in response to situations of overwhelming and life-threatening circumstances. Don’t get me wrong…I am a competent and experienced driver but my Canadian experience of driving on smoothly-paved asphalt roads nor my one day of driving briefly in Mbarara – NOTHING prepared me for the level of stress and the poor conditions of the road that first day of driving.

Picture this: Kimberly and I had the task of transporting bricks with Johnson and Rose (our local counterparts) to various parts of the community. So we merrily loaded the Toyota Hi-Lux pickup with over 100 bricks (each weighing more than 5 pounds). Now the thing you need to realize about these backroads is that they are STEEP…some are inclined at almost 45 degree angles and they are pockmarked with deep and long potholes. So not your average driving situation, unless you’re a Ugandan. As I was the only driver that day, I ended up making four trips with bricks (bricks...bricks...said in a Larry Smith voice) to two different locations. Again, let me remind you that it was my first day EVER driving on rural roads in Uganda. At one of the destinations, the truck felt like it would slide down the embankment I tried to park on and into the adjacent house. (That is one recurring nightmare that I have: I lose control of the truck and it smashes one of the mudhouses that dot every community). The return trip to pick up bricks was the most intimidating the first time: the hill leading up the churchyard where the bricks are stored is angled at at least 35-40 degrees. I was in 2nd gear at the base of the hill, and was slowly chugging up when I felt the engine starting to sloooooooow down. Panicking, I shoved the truck into 1st and gassed it...the hill is so steep I could barely see past the dashboard. Fortunately, I didn't stall and we made it up the hill in one piece.

But the adventure continued that day. Returning to camp exhausted and frazzled after a solid five hours of loading and unloading bricks and navigating the roads, we rested briefly for lunch. Then we (Kimberly, Rose, Johnson and I) headed out to one of the farthest communities in the Buranga cell to visit with a man who owns a fish pond. On the way, I encountered a man filling the potholes in the road by scraping dirt around with a forklift. Unfortunately, a large pile of dirt blocked the way. He attempted to clear a path and then I steeled myself as I gingerly started driving through the remaining mounds of dirt...and proceeded to get extremely stuck. The more I attempted to navigate through the mess, the closer I got to the edge of the road, which was a fair drop to the bottom. I didn't know who close I was to the edge until Kimberly got out and took pictures of the situation with her digital camera. I was SO frazzled that Johnson called over the forklift operator who jumped in, switched on the 4-wheel drive and got us unstuck.

We arrived in one piece at the man's fish pond, where we slid down a muddy hill and proceeded to stand in a miserable hut for an hour while it poured outside (this being rainy season). There were at least twenty of us huddled in the hut, with the man's family and neighbours peering curiously at the two muzungu who dared venture out in the rain to talk about fish, no less. I was cold, damp and hungry. And on the return trip home, I encounted the same pile of dirt, which I got stuck in AGAIN! Fortunately, a man driving his sedan was able to help me out and I was able to get back to camp and declare the rest of the evening devoted to "princessing out": listening to my CD player (ahhh...nothing like Mariah Carey or Ludacris - Loodah- to bliss out to) and eating from my stash of granola bars.

So, in ending, here are some tips for driving on rural Ugandan roads that I have since picked up:

1. Wave to every and all villagers you see when out driving (you never know when you will need an entire village to push you out of a muddy mess...trust me...it happened recently).
2. Talk to your truck and always kiss it once you make it up a seemingly impossible hill.
3. You will always end up having extra passengers standing/sitting in the back of your pickup truck, so drive with caution - you don't want to pitch someone over the side by driving too fast.
4. With regards to #3, loud banging on the roof when having people in the back, means that you've already driven past their house...so pay attention!
5. Learn to squish your ekibuuno (=bum) into the smallest of spaces if you ever end up riding in the back of a truck or car...if there are less than five people in the back, there is STILL space for more!