Driving in Uganda and Pork Joints - Aug 15

Saturday Aug 15 - Had my best day today so far.

Sponsored Kids Meeting
At 7:30am, sponsored kids began arriving for praise & worship, an encouraging speech, and for letter-writing to sponsors. It is my understanding that these letter-writings happen every couple of months, but EAC's involvement in the kids' lives is much greater....many attend schools or outreach programs (Kids in Need, etc) where we worship and lead Bible studies. The kids just completed their second term at school and have a few weeks off before the final term starts (Uganda school has 3 terms a year, with 3 week holidays in between).

EAC was started by Wilson Kabeera, who was a sponsored child, and many of the Ugandan volunteers were (and still are, in some cases) also sponsored children....albeit through an organization called Compassion UK, which has over 1 million sponsored children across 25 countries. Wilson started EAC to focus specifically on Uganda and to weave in an outreach program as well in his home country. As of today, there are approximately 72 sponsored children with the goal of 200 by the end of 2009. With God, anything is possible. Sponsoring a child is $30/month. I actually just signed up to sponsor on Thursday and I hung out with my sponsoree (I'm sure that is not a word), a 14-yr old girl named Joann.

Anyhow, as the 2nd school term just ended, the sponsored kids gathered at the EAC house. I lent my camera to some of the kids, so there are many pics of the day....and sadly, the 12-yr old kid took way better pics than I would have. Click the Picasa link at right to see them (there is a separate album specifically for those pics).

A few of the kids took to me...which brings another point of discussion: Ugandans are a very physical people. It is not uncommon for friends of the same sex to hold hands, walk arm in arm, or lay on each other.....it just happens. And many of these kids do not have a father, so any stable male influence (especially someone as different as a muzungu) is comforting to them. We played football, praised & worshipped etc. We then helped the children write letters to their sponsors, which was a frustrating process due to the language barrier and the fact that I was dealing with 11-12 yr old boys.....doesn't matter the country, kids are kids and their attention span is limited when they are struggling.

After the letter-writing, we all had lunch and played more....we presented the kids with mattresses or blankets (all from the money given by sponsors). The faces of the kids were precious....some exuberant, some slightly confused, some embarrassed --> but all happy.

The meeting ended at about 3pm.

Driving in Uganda
After bumming around for a few, Benon asked if I would be willing to drive to drop off the plastic chairs we borrowed for the meeting....only one of the Ugandan EAC volunteers has a license and my US license will work for about 30 days here. I could not pass this chance up!!! Driving an old van...on the left side of the road, in the chaos of motorcycles and dirt roads....count me in!

Uganda has a few main paved roads which cover about 10% of the city (my estimation)....they are jampacked with all sorts of modes of transportation...no real lanes...tons of vans, a few land cruisers, and hundreds of 'boda-bodas' (motorcycles for hire). My experience in aggressive Houston driving was an asset...pushing through cars and turning in front of other motorists. Once you get off the main paved roads to reach 90% of the city, there are narrow dirt roads full of potholes....chickens, barefoot kids, etc. It was great having two old ladies shout at me "muzungu!" as i drove by (or bounced by)....It was not so great when I got run off the road into a ditch by a huge oncoming truck....in the rain. Yep, that red clay I admired so much earlier...well, when it gets wet, it apparently doesnt hold much traction....

30 minutes, 6 people pushing, and 1 pair of muddy pants later, we managed to get out of the ditch....yes, the van still worked....but I drove off with Benon and Felix with a sense of appreciation for the wide roads in the US. I saw later cars just back up out of that road to avoid the same thing happening to them. My camera battery had died earlier in the day, so I, unfortunately do not have pictures of that....but it is a great experience nonetheless and one I will never forget.

Pork Joint
We arrived back at the house at 6pm and immediately formed a group of 6 Ugandan volunteers and 3 foreigners for a little birthday dinner celebration for Benon. We went to a local pork joint....Yep, PORK JOINT.....

Pork joints may be the closest thing to Heaven here in Uganda (clearly an exaggeration...but pork is a delicacy here). To set the scene...the pork joint was a stucco-esque structure...with three walls, a ceiling and a courtyard area facing the opening to the joint. There is a pool table, a bar selling local beer and vodka in a bag (yes...you read that properly), and another area with tables.

We chose to sit in the middle of the courtyard....as we were celebrating Benon's bday, Ivan covered the cost of the pig....I offered to supply drinks. Waiting for our order, we went through three rounds of glass-bottled coke (yep, 27 cokes...still only cost me $10). The waitress "God bless"ed me for all the coke we ordered, as I think the restaurant makes a good margin on it. I also taught the Ugandans 'spin the bottle' ...no we didnt actually play...but it was fun to see Benon spin the bottle and the girls scream, get up and run away! About an hour after ordering, one large, steaming hot pan was brought to the center of the table, uncovered and we all dug in with our grimey hands...no utensils or hand sanitizers were allowed, we were going after a true African experience.

The pork dish consists of pieces of roasted pork, potatoes, bananas, peppers, matake, and some type of tomato-ish sauce I think. By the time we got our dinner it was dark, so I didnt really get a good look at it. Now, eating a big dish of roasted pork in the middle of a table of 9 is a form of Ugandan competitive eating. Diana warned me ahead of time that the correct strategy in this pork free-for-all is to push your hands in and properly identify the pork from the potatoes and bananas. The first few pieces I grabbed were potatoes...and they were very good...but I was disappointed when I got them in my mouth and realized they were not pig!

So, my fingers dived back for more...grasping in the dark mush for something that may feel like pig...the mush was burning hot...but I couldn't resist . And then it happened...I touched bone. I pulled it out despite the burning sensation and I shoved the piece in my mouth...sweet pork juices flowed. I am not sure what part of the pig it was from...but the succulence and flavor beats any pork dish (including bbq ribs). Once I got the hang of it and realized that the pork seemed to be situated more in the middle of the big pan, my fingers became a "pork GPS" (as Ivan put it)...every piece I grabbed was pork and it was wonderful. I later found out that the best strategy would have been to set aside the pork with bones on the table (as if they had already been stripped of meat), then go after easier to eat pork before coming back to the boned piece.....next time, no prisoners.

After 5 minutes of frantic eating, the pan was clean and my day was complete.