The Adventures of M and T, Farming Afficionados

26^th - 28^th March – Days 178-180 – Soroti, Uganda

Uganda is not a very big country and is relatively easy to move around in as well. This is a good thing when one has booked the calendar full of project inspection visits. With just under three weeks in the country, we had to make a quick move from Njeru to our next destination, Soroti, where we were to go and brush up our agricultural skills in the Aitaritoi Women's Group's farmlands. We got to Soroti in the afternoon and booked ourselves in at the Paradise Villas hotel at Ugx 10 000 (just over 3€) per night, had a beer at the outdoor terrace and turned in.

In the morning, we were picked up from the hotel by a full 4x4 load of people from the project group and together we headed off to the neighbouring district of Amuria where the Women's Group was located. Once again we were greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of about 30 to 40 women singing songs and holding welcoming speeches. We were put on the spot and had to produce one of our own, which led to slight panic over who should do the honours this time around. T bent over under pressure, delivered a « fantastic speech » and we got through the ceremonies gracefully.

T disproves the inexplicably popular theory that white men can't dance

Then we were taken around the fields and explained a fair bit about crop cultivation. The group had planted cassava, oranges, pineapples and a fruit called Shiboti, from which shea butter is extracted if we got our notes right. The plantations also had a few mango trees growing in the middle of them and we were fed an unripe (completely green) mango each, which apparently is fine to be eaten with the skin. We thought the taste was slightly too bitter for our liking but cordially finished our mangoes. The tour continued with some comic scenes of T ploughing the fields with the oxen that were provided with the 1% money. This ended in the oxen not listening to any commands from T but instead pulling wherever they wished, resulting in T ploughing through half of one of the village compounds inside the plantation. It was only afterwards that we learnt that the oxen only listen to commands given in the Iteso language.

Another one for the CV... N.B. the awful picture colour scheme can be attributed to "new camera syndrome"

We then walked to the other end of the plantation about 2 kms away where we were shown a few granaries, given some more fruit – shiboti and pawpaw, some relative to papaya – and asked to plant a shiboti tree each. The villagers also donated a live chicken to us! Great, what does one do with a live chicken...? Carry it along through Africa, OR kill it for dinner? We named the chicken Miriam, after Miriam Makeba's Chicken song. Singing « Kikirikiiikiiii..... » we returned to the Women Group's main building for some more ceremonies in which we were given straw hats and a straw mat. Lovely presents but more trouble for us as we'd later have to try and cram these things in our bags.

"How many Ugandans does it take to plant a tree?" - none. Just a muzungu armed with a hoe. N.B. see above for pathetic excuses on picture quality

Miriam takes centre stage

As the last part of our tour the group contact people took us to the Amuria village centre to have a look at the local market where we were invited to join with the circle of people drinking a local brew made out of millet. T, ever cordial, sat down and tried his luck while I excused myself under the pretext of not having had any breakfast yet on that day and not wanting to consume alcohol before doing so. After a short while we got back into the car equipped with refreshing sugar canes and headed back into Soroti for lunch.

The road to Soroti, jammed with vehicles

We had been treated in an extremely kind and welcoming manner the whole day by our project hosts who also bought us lunch, so we decided to offer a round of drinks for the whole lot as an appreciative gesture. This is where the fun started. After the first round the group of more than 10 people went ahead and ordered another round, and another. The sun set and football was blasting from the bar's TV. After Arsenal had beaten whoever they were playing (me and Christine, one of the project's main representatives were watching the game eagerly but I still can't remember who they were playing) I returned to the terrace where the guys were discussing African politics and learnt that T had just been presented with the bill for all of the rounds, not just the first one. This is Africa. Not very thrilled about this, I got into a rather aggravated mood which was most likely sensed by our local friends as they later paid for our chicken and chips and gave us a ride back to the hotel. It's all good and well in the sense that it does not exactly break our bank to buy a couple of rounds for these people, but I still fight against this kind of blatant extortion because we do not get paid to visit our projects nor did we openly offer to treat half the town to the beer tab. Here it's the principle that counts in my mind, and no matter what the locals might think, we don't exactly grow gold out of our backsides. They did offer us lunch and dinner and drove us around, and I still liked the people from this project and thought they had their priorities right when it comes to the big picture so I don't carry any personal resentment against them – only against how the pattern repeats itself here sometimes.

In light of the slight crash in our moods and the fact that we'd have to continue our journey again in the morning, we kindly declined our friends' suggestions to go out to the nightclub with them. When we got back to the hotel, Miriam was waiting for us in front of the door where we had left her earlier with her legs bound together. We slept on the issue of what to do with her, and decided to give her to one of the cleaning ladies at the hotel before taking a bus out of town in the morning. We suspect that she made a fine dinner for the girl's family.

And we look forward to coming back to Soroti some day to check up on our shiboti trees...