The Good, the Bad and the Egg-layer

 

Walking through the village for the first time – on my way to Kanungu for the weekly shop at the market on Saturday – a succession of people call out and wave as I pass: "Madame! Welcome back!" or sometimes just "Well back!" or even "You were lost!" which I translate optimistically as "We missed you" – unless they really do think that I have been wandering about Uganda for the last few weeks trying to find my way back to the village….?

Half way up the hill a motor bike pulls up and as he removes his helmet (he is the only person I have met so far who wears one…) I see that it is the Reverend from the Cathedral. Is he going to ask me to preach on Sunday, I panic - already? But no, he wants to tell me that he has been moved to another church some way from here so won't be around very much. He is clearly unhappy about this and proceeds to pour out a tale of woe. He has been sent to an area beyond Kihihi, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, a remote and fiercely tribal village - the Ugandan equivalent of being banished to Siberia. "It is a dangerous place" he says. "Because of the rebels and the fighting?" I ask. "No - because of the witch-doctors" he replies in hushed tones. "I cannot take my wife there or she will die. So she will remain here and I will travel back when I have the time". With fear in his voice he explains that every priest before him who has gone there has lost a member of his family: the local people do not like strangers in their midst and so the witch-doctors put a curse on a member of the priest's family so that they will leave – or die, whichever happens first. The last priest's young wife died suddenly and Reverend John is not going to let the same thing happen again. I try to gently suggest that all these deaths might have been from a conventional illness – a heart attack, perhaps, or an infection - but he is having none of it. "No, no, these men are very dangerous and powerful" he says. "They even do it to each other!" Once a curse has been put on someone, it can only be removed by another witch-doctor – and in a case like this they put on a united front of non co-operation towards the unwelcome outsider. Perhaps the Bishop will intervene and send him somewhere else if he explains his fears, I suggest? But no, he has been sent to this area actually because, he suspects, he has upset the Bishop in some way. Feelings run high in church politics round here and factions of supporters of one or other church dignitary mutter and murmur about each other constantly. I wonder what this mild-mannered man could have done to upset the Bishop so much. True, I have seen him take a call on his mobile phone during the Rural Dean's sermon on one occasion but this surely can't be reason enough for expulsion from the fold…? "I think I have been sent there to die" he mutters darkly as he sets off towards his new and unwanted workplace. It seems incredible that his Christian faith cannot sustain him and give him more confidence in standing up to these primitive forces: but, pondering on the complex nature of the human mind as I walk on up the hill, I reflect on how vulnerable we are and how readily influenced, whether to buy a face-cream that will knock years off our face or to trust financial institutions with our money ( I am guilty on both counts needless to say...). There are well-disguised con-men everywhere and none of us is immune to their persuasive powers, it would seem. Although people are reluctant to admit it, black magic is still practised covertly in parts of Uganda: in the newspaper this week we learn that eleven witch doctors have been arrested near to Kampala "in connection with the discovery of a headless body" - but I am hastily reassured by everyone I ask that nothing like that goes on round here….or does it, I wonder…?

On Sunday there is further gloom at the church: not only is the Reverend missing, but most of the hymn-books as well. Light-fingered (and presumably music-loving) members of the congregation have, over the last few weeks, been sneaking these flimsy booklets out at the end of services and today we have only a handful left to share amongst a congregation consisting of all the Kirima School children, the staff and pupils of another local school and everyone else besides. Nothing daunted we sing about a dozen hymns, mumbling incomprehensibly, making up words as best we can or just repeating the first line over and over again- a very feeble performance compared with the usual joyful, roof-raising experience. Worse, the visiting priest announces, there can be no Holy Communion today as the church has run out of funds and cannot even afford to buy the wine and the wafers. We trudge out into the sunlight feeling thoroughly contrite after a reproachful sermon based on the text "You have turned my house into a den of thieves" and with a shared sense of guilt that the few of us who can afford to have not been putting enough into the collection recently. Even holy places are not immune from credit-crunch misery, it would seem….

But if all is not well in the church, then at the Primary School there is great rejoicing. At a special assembly I officially hand over the boxes full of text books and the toys for the Nursery to much clapping and excitement. When I make the announcement that the boarders will soon all have mosquito nets there is an audible squeal of delight and an outburst of spontaneous applause. It is a lovely moment, and I quickly tell them that it is not I who has provided all these things but children and grownups in England, who have sent them with love and friendship to help them with their school life. The staff are as delighted as the pupils, I think, and the text books are put to immediate use in the morning's lessons – "We are very grateful, Madame Julia, to your good friends who have done this" they say, shaking me by the hand vigorously one by one. Dennis, the deputy head, finds me at the end of the day and relates, almost with incredulity, how for the first time he has been able to give the class maths text books and tell them to turn to a page and get on with the work. " I didn't have to write it all on the board!" he says exultantly "and they all worked so hard! This is wonderful!" I then spend some time with Godfrey opening parcels of books that have arrived from England (and indeed Australia!) – lovely books of all sorts, stories that have clearly been carefully chosen to be suitable, reference books, books about sport and nature – they are delightful and just right, and I am glad to have the chance to look at the names of the senders on the back and to be able to think of each one with a personal "Oh, how good of them!" – some close friends and family, others whom I haven't seen for a long time, past pupils and parents for example. I know these cost a lot to post but truly, each package is a wonderful gift to these children and will bring so much pleasure. More are on their way, I know; the post here is very slow indeed and I myself have only just received a parcel that was posted to me last October! The Nursery children are fascinated by their new toys: slightly in awe of them at first, they examine them carefully piece by piece as if unsure of quite what to do with them - but they quickly get the hang of them and love them so much that they cry when they are put away and say they don't want to go home! The staff seem as enthralled as the children with the construction kits and sit happily making models alongside them lost in a world of their own. "I think I should have been an engineer not a teacher!" Robert beams proudly, admiring his complex arrangement of cogs and wheels…

At the High School too there is great excitement at the arrival of their new text books, and the news that they too will receive mosquito nets shortly. With all the building work and improvements that are in progress, there is a sense of great excitement about the place and they hold a special assembly out in the sunshine in which they sing a newly-composed song of thanks accompanied by a traditional dance with much whooping and clapping to show their appreciation. Once again, I tell them, it is not I who has made these things possible but the combined efforts of many people from far across the sea in England: I am only a representative for them. Everyone – staff and pupils alike – is palpably grateful and I only wish you could all be there to see this happy celebration and know how much your support means to them. Spirits are high in this little corner of Uganda!

For me, returning to the village for a second time has been so much easier than the first and it has been almost effortless to adjust back to the simple way of life here – indeed, quite a relief after the over-indulgence of Christmas. Even the fact that the hot shower has now, due to some defect in the chancy Ugandan wiring, been reduced to a cold one, hasn't caused too much anguish - washing my hair under the chilling cascade does take a bit of stoicism but I tell myself that it's really no different from going swimming: one gasp and the worst is over. Buying 'Joy' toilet paper again – so undeniably well -named, since vastly superior to the only other brand available which resembles a kind of grey sandpaper – and yesterday's newspapers, now thoughtfully available in two choices, 'read' and 'unread', both at the same price - and all the other endearing eccentricities of Kanungu shopping life, has been a pleasurable voyage of rediscovery especially when accompanied by the warm greetings of the shopkeepers. The diet, too, has quickly become familiar again. I have, alas, missed the short mango season but aubergines are abundant now – round, fat, purple ones rather than the tiny white eggplants we ate before. However after consuming aubergine stew five nights running, and with nothing much to add to them bar the odd tomato, even this favourite vegetable has begun to pall. So eating a boiled bantam's egg today brings a degree of pleasure totally disproportionate to its small size and I savour every mouthful. Eggs are a luxury here: they are expensive as although many people keep hens they do so mostly for breeding and, when they are past that, eating – tough and chewy though they have become in their old age. To eat two eggs at one sitting would be regarded as the height of extravagance so an omelette here is a delicate little thing requiring a good deal of supplementary support from the ubiquitous matoke and rice – but oh, so delicious! Hamlet and Kellen's hens, meanwhile, have been confined to their henhouse since the owner of the neighbouring banana field has complained about their trespassing and bad behaviour: their vigorous pecking and careless foraging have allegedly uprooted the bean seedlings growing under the trees. Fowl play is suspected....

At the Primary School I enjoy being reunited with the children and hearing their charming, old-fashioned, misspelled names again – Apophia, Daughter, Liry, Penlope (sic), Shillah, Moreen, Babrah, Scovia, Miliam, Shallon, – and, of course, getting back into the teaching routine. Today I have been asked to help them write replies to letters sent by a school in Yorkshire and I suggest that they try to describe their home lives and what they do after school: this of course, makes chastening and sometimes moving reading as they describe – quite factually and unemotionally – the realities of their leisure time: fetching water and firewood, grazing the animals, washing, sweeping, cooking and digging. One ten year old boy says "When I reach home I fetch water and wash my clothes and also my sister's. Then I go to sell pancakes to look for my school fees. After selling pancakes I give the money to my mother and then it is late and I go to sleep". Another says "I live with my stepmother because my mother went back to her father's house. My stepmother does not love me as well as her own children. But God cares for me". When parents divorce, the mother is sent back to her parents, regardless of whose fault the breakdown was, and the children stay with the father. Sadly, mistreatment by the new stepmother is not uncommon and existing children often become virtual servants to the new family, or, as in this case, feel unloved and unwanted. Some are even less fortunate: "I don't have parents but I have a guardian. I am female and an orphan and each day I thank God that I am still alive" one young girl relates unselfpityingly. I do get a few smiles, though: from Obed who says he enjoys playing 'folly-ball' – the perfect description for one particular team sport I can think of – and Precious who says she 'cleans the house by moping'- presumably a few tears help to shift the dust. One letter even ends with an unexpected reference to me: " Teacher Julia always teaches us English and RE and she is a well-behaved woman" - so you can all stop worrying about what I have been getting up to!

It's lovely to be back….