Samuel

The other day I ran into Samuel going up the path as I was coming down. Samuel is one of the first people I met here. He is middle aged with a ready smile and is one of two people who always makes it a point to converse with me. Too bad he's a drunk.

The first time I met him he said he was an electrictian, which I thought a little odd but plausible as the power grid stops far from here, but there are a handful of generators in the county and one solar power system that I know of. I have since found that his main responsibility is maintaining the water supplies in the area, which are a few springs, a couple boreholes(wells), and a gravity water system. Although mostly when I see him he is sitting around talking or drinking, which is a common practice. He usually wears a purple sweater and a driving cap, even when he took me way back up in the hills so he could show me the source of the gravity water system which carries water in pipes down from the hills to tanks and taps along the way to the parish. I was sweating and huffing and puffing as we clambored up rocky paths and across muddy hillsides wet with dew, getting me covered in mud and sweat just before my meeting with the local councilmen, but he didn't seem to break a sweat in his sweater. For me it's odd that people around here wear heavy winter coats and jackets almost every morning. They say "You are cold!", which means "aren't you cold?", when they see me in a short sleeved shirt. I haven't acclimated to 65° being freezing cold yet. It's usually 70-75° during the day, but the tropical midday sun can be very intense. Today I am in Kampala on the way to a Peace Corps conference in Jinja at a fancy resort, and here out of the hills seems rather hot to me, but it's probably not over 80. It's odd to think that when I left Kansas at the beginning of March it was still cold, now they have 100° temps. The temperature doesn't change like that here, and it's hard for people to imagine such extremes. (also this week I saw Poseiden Adventures at a movie theater. It was a bit hokey if you ask me.)

So when I met Samuel walking up the path, we exchanged the customary greetings:
I said "osiibire gye?"
Samuel "yeego, waasiibire ota?", which is typical for him to say, but isn't part of the greeting exchange we learned in language class during training. At first when people didn't follow the greeting script we learned, I wanted to say "no, no you're supposed to say this...then I say this...", but I'm used to it now.
me: "naasiibire gye"
him: "agandi?"
me: "ni gye"
Then he went past the greetings and said with a grin because he knows I am trying to learn the language, "nooruga nkahi?"
I responded, "wait, I know what that means...", but he didn't wait for me to formulate an answer and said in English "Where are you coming from?"
I pointed up the hill and said "just there."
him: "ah"
me: "nookora ki?" (what are you doing)
him: "Ninza kurambura paipu amaizi."
me: "Uh, ...something...water."
him: "Ee, good, you know much. 'I am going to inspect the water pipes'."
Then he said, "There are more of you coming."
me: "There are more of me coming?"
him: "Yes, I think there are more of you coming."
I wasn't completely sure, but I thought he might be referring to the group coming from Italy on a mission trip, so I said "The Italians are coming at the end of the month?" (Questions aren't phrased as questions, they are just asked as questions, which can be odd when someone says "You will have matoke", when they mean "Do you want to have a huge heaping pile of steamed and mashed plantains wrapped in a banana leaf?")
Samuel: "ee" (yes)
me: "For me, I have never been to Italy. I do not know them."
him:"Seventeen are coming, but they will work in the health center, the ward, the dispensary even."
me:"yes, it will good."
him:"kare" (okay)
me:"osiibe gye" (spend the day well)

And he went on up the hill to check the water pipes, taps, pressure reducing valves, and tanks.
By now he knows that I'm not Italian, but most people around here think that I must be when they first meet me, because there is a group from Italy that sends people every year to work at the health center for 3 or 4 days then go to a national park for a safari or trekking in the mountains. They also send a lot of funding. They have paid for building a surgery building (though we have no surgeon, not even a doctor), a huge maternity building (though only about 5 mothers a month give birth there, most deliver at home), a community center building, and the house in which I use one bedroom, and last week two huge cargo freight containers on two semi trailers rumbled in. They had come from Italy full of donations for the health center: bales and bales of used clothing, tons of hospital beds, medical supplies, fancy medical equipment, and a huge generating unit. That is what most people here have seen when they see a white person, but I have a different mode of operation here. I am trying to become a part of this community, get to know the people, build relationships, work alongside them. I'm not giving handouts, but am working toward sustainable and self sufficient improvement that doesn't create dependancy. Easier said than done. Not that the Italians aren't doing good; I have been on similar trips myself. It's just that I have to get people passed the fact that I am operating differently from them. Right now I am working on getting around roadblocks in trying to get affordable mosquito nets available to the people here. Hardly anyone has a net, as they are expensive, but malaria is a huge burden for the people in terms of lost time tending crops or working, treatment costs, and lives lost. We live among wetlands, and the mosquitoes are bad, so when I tell people that malaria is spread by the bite of mosquitoes at night, some say "yes, but what will we do, we can't afford nets." Partly what they are saying is that I must be rich, so would I give them money, and partly they are saying that they really want to protect thier families, but really don't have the means. So I tell them about other measures they can take to reduce mosquitoes. The government will be spraying every house in the district this month, so it should help.

I have been at my site for a month now. It's slow going becoming part of things and figuring out what needs I can address and how to about doing it. I am less like the local freak show now and more like the local oddity. I sometimes miss family, friends, and familiar things at home, but I simply cannot go back to my convienient, comfortably isolated and ignorant life in the US yet. Not after getting to know people here and starting to become part of thier lives. Not before trying to do some kind of good. It is what we all must do: try to do some good wherever we are, however we can. I have no magic bullets and a Ugandan would probably be more effective in my position, and there are many Ugandans doing similar work, but I will do what I can.