My Best Day in Uganda, Part II

(When we last heard from our hero, he was in a canoe heading toward Mutanda Island.)

We pulled up to the island and the boy jammed the canoe hard into the reeds. “Wakozi,” we said to him as we hopped out. Thank You. “Shouldn’t we pay him something,” I said to Willbroad. “He is from the family,” Will replied. “This is like something that he does for the family.” “Like chores,” I offered. “Yes, that,” he said. Will wasn’t really listening. There was something up ahead of us.

The island’s residents had gathered along the path leading up from the lakeside. Almost all of them were women, and they were in their best Sunday getups. Purples and blues and oranges and greens, all of them bright and flashy, none subdued or muted. Not a pastel in sight.

We shook hands reverently with each old lady while the children screamed for attention. The kids grabbed at our hands, they stared, they stood in front of us and stuffed fingers in their mouths and pushed out their protruding bellies.

We visited the grandmother of the island first, which Willbroad stated was proper island protocol. On arrival there was another round of handshaking, bowing, nodding, smiling. I began using the few Rufumbira words I knew --- “Hello” “How are you?” “Thank You” --- and each attempt was greeted with general laughter.

I wanted to convey my enjoyment, and so I thought for a moment. “Will, could you tell them I think this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been in my entire life?”

He translated it. One of the more spirited old ladies pumped her fist in the air and shouted a few words in Rufumbira. Everyone laughed.

“She says, ‘Oh, the mzungus, they all like islands, why do mzungus all like islands and water?’”

And I thought, Doesn’t everyone like islands and water?

We walked back down the hill to the home of Kabunga, the orphaned boy that we’d come to see. This boy had been discovered when a previous Montefiore resident in Kisoro had taken care of his mother, while she was dying of cancer. The resident was concerned about the woman’s children, and first came to visit the boy in 2006. Since then there have been regular trips, by many different people. Spaghetti-making is a frequent activity.

Kabunga (not his real name) is a quiet, upright boy. He seems older than his twelve years. He is the man of the family, and wears this title sternly. An attempt was made to pay for him to go to boarding school, but he quit and came back to the island. He said that as the man of the family, he had responsibilities and could not go to school.

Kabunga’s house is a simple mud hut. There are several rooms, including a kitchen, bedroom, and living room. When we first walked inside I made the mistake of taking a normal lungful of air, and I nearly asphyxiated. There was so much smoke that I could barely see to the other side of the room. Kabunga was casually dusting off a bench for us to sit on, and he seemed to be taking full breaths with no respiratory distress, which boggled my mind. I politely asked if we could move the bench outside.

The packed dirt courtyard was filled with two groups: children between about 4 and 10 who clustered on a woven mat next to the fire, and older kids from 12 to 17 or so, who hung out in back by the banana trees. Plus two or three old ladies. I was the only human being between 30 and 60. The gender breakdown was still 90% girls and women.

After another round of formalities, we started meal preparations. Wood was collected from whatever was in sight. A teenage girl brought a flaming fist of corn husks from inside the home and lit our pile of twigs. We moved some rocks into place and set a big metal pot of water over the stick fire.

One of my accomplishments for the day was impressing everyone by using a fresh green banana leaf as a lid for the pot of water. The fire burned the outside of the leaf, where it hung over the edge of the pot. But the rest of the leaf stayed intact and worked perfectly well as a lid.

(Of course, the point of putting a lid on a pot water is to make it boil faster. And I have a feeling the question “Aren't you happy you can boil your water faster?” would be greeted with a skeptical eyebrow and a “Why would we care about that?”)

I squatted over the fire for much too long, in the blazing direct sunlight, and when I stood up I nearly passed out. My vision closed down circularly from the outside in. For a brief, scary second, I was blind. I willed myself to stay standing. It would not do to fall on my side, especially if that side was toward the fire. I managed to stay upright, but when my vision slowly crept back I found I was staring into the face of an old Ugandan woman, a wizened, craggy lady squatting against Kabunga’s house with a stick of sugarcane in her bony hand. She cackled and showed me the few teeth in her mouth. She knew exactly what had just happened to me.

We dropped two packs of spaghetti in the nearly boiling water and stirred it with a one utensil we had: a large knife, the same one we were using to chop the tomatoes.

I had to catch my tongue so many times while we were cooking: Do you have plates for all these kids? (No.) Are there enough forks? (Actually, there are no forks.) Is there a spaghetti strainer? (Now you’re just being an idiot.)

Once the spaghetti was precisely al dente (because hell, if you’re going to do it, do it right) we drained the water out using that large knife. Do you have a dish towel to hold the hot metal pot? (No, we have calluses.) Then we chucked the tomatoes in the pot, added some lard, added some salt, and stirred. When it was “ready”, we transferred it salad-fork-style, using the knife and a borrowed tablespoon, to the four available plates, and passed them around.

Taken out of context, this moment could be hell on earth: sitting in the dirt; sharing a plate with two other people; shoveling the food into your mouth with your fingers; washing it down with warm water, with the sun pounding on you and no shade anywhere.

But you’re watching fifteen children stuff their faces with a food they only get a few times a year. Which you just cooked for them.

And the pleasures of the day are not over yet. Not nearly.