Trying to survive village life

6/8/2014

Still trying to lead an examined life.... yet the only thing I can think about is how the last few hours have been a reminder that village life is tough.

Supper was a flop! Usually when I come up north I pack too much food so this trip I tried to actually plan instead of just tossing some eatable things in a bag.  But for the past two days I’ve been doing several hours of garden work with the women starting early in the morning. It is hard physical labor and by “lunch time” I’m hungry and am eating a lot more than I normally do up here. I didn’t pack enough food. And my neighbors are eating green leaves that they collected while we were walking the 2 kilometers back from their fields. That together with cassava roots is all they have right now until harvest time. And it isn’t like I can run to the corner store. There is nothing to purchase out here. I had a mango left that I packed for breakfast tomorrow but found it was full of worms. Parts of it were still consumable so ate it anyway.

Then headed out to the bathing structure to scrape off the layers of sweat and garden dirt. Due to the full moon I was reminded that I am very white and it seemed like the whole village could see me “showering” so I was trying to be quick and managed to spill almost the whole jerry can. It is a several km, physically strenuous, walk for water and not possible after dark.

So, now I’m tired, sore, hungry, and very dirty. But as much as I want to, I can’t sit here and feel sorry for myself.  My neighbors work harder than I do for more hours of the day from the day they are big enough to carry a hoe. They have less food than I do for most months of the year. They always struggle for water. I have a mattress. They will all be sleeping on the ground. I have a pantry in Soroti filled with food. They have to hope and pray for a good harvest and just don’t know what will come.

Headed back to Soroti in the morning.