April 11, 2007

Easter Sunday

Mmmm… It’s Easter Sunday. The sun is starting to play hide and seek- finding refuge between the horizon and a few lingering clouds. The wind is dropping a few degrees with every new gust- and with every new gust, a new smell- roasting plantains, lake water, smoke from the bonfire–loud beats thumping from the bar across the beach. Since I’m still waiting to hear back from work and the whole country is on a four day holiday, I hopped on a 4 hour ferry to the ever-popular, but crazy strange, Ssese Islands- an archipelago of 84 islands amidst of what is known to be “the greatest vertebrate mass extinction in recorded history” (– A quick tangent, Kampala is on Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest freshwater body… but unfortunately, this lake has been suffering from total environment degradation since the early colonial era. It started with over-fishing, then continued with the introduction of Nile tilapia which threw off the whole ecosystem. This environmental destruction continued with the runoff of agricultural chemicals – resulting in booming levels of algae, therefore decreased levels of oxygen, leaving Lake Victoria as a mass of dead water – no oxygen, no fish, just loads of algae and bilharzia. Anyway, it’s the weirdest feeling being on this island, you end up laying out in the sun on a white sand beach and having to treat the water that’s two feet away from you as if it were a toxic bath). Seriously, I should be shot. I’m clumsily multi-tasking – in one hand, I’m babbling away on the phone with Dan about wind reports at Crissy Field and life as we do, and fumbling with the camera in the other hand as I’m trying to take a picture of the sunset, all without stopping the momentum of the rocking hammock with my right foot. I never thought I‘d ever say this, but I miss my life back at home, miss being stressed, miss the jog up Fort Mason along the bay, miss crisp spinach, miss silly girly chit chats with my favorite paparazzi, miss my space, miss feeling grounded.

But the thought of the day puts a smile back on my face- Easter really was unlike any other. Earlier this morning, I took a boda boda and zipped through fields of tall golden grass on a dirt path, zig-zagging up the Kalangala hill to the village’s small church – a very modest inconspicuous one-story tall building. The bewitching intricate beat of bongo drums intermingled with a few scraggly voices leads us towards the Easter service. I take a seat next to a shriveled little old lady lost in an extravagant elaborate traditional dress. Her eyes are sparkling through piles of wrinkles. She smiles, it’s completely contagious. I look around the room – white washed walls, bars over windows with no glass pane, a simple cross made from two wooden sticks adorn the front wall, benches packed together as tightly as possible, in turn packed with people as tightly as possible, people flooding out of the doors onto blankets under the windows, little munchkins dressed in oversized black tie regalia running through the aisles. Ah, I love this! – oh wait, until I find myself paralyzed under the glare of those sparkling adorable eyes every time I eye the exit door throughout the 3 hour service in Luganda. Ah la la, an Easter to remember.

Ride back

The African orphan ads we chuck in junk mail never felt so real.

Monday morning, it’s time to get off the island and back to the city. But we discover at 7 am that the 8:30 ferry, and only ferry, back to Kampala has already left. The boat was full. Ok, plan B. You always need a plan B in Uganda. The only other option is to take the long way back. So boda boda (motocycle taxi) to Kalangala, matatu (intended 14 person mini-van, which turns out to be 25 –30 once out of Kampala) to the other ferry, ferry to mainland town/fishing village, taxi (Corolla intended for 4 passengers, 8-10 people when out of Kampala) from fishing village to Masaka and then take a bus from Masaka to Kampala, probably 9 hours door to door. It’s going to be a long, rough road, but fine- it’s all an adventure.

We’ve now reached the second stage of the trip back to Kampala, cruising along in a raging matatu easily going over 80 mph on a dirt road. We can barely catch a glimpse the racing countryside, when the driver slows down – Five little silhouettes are trotting alongside the road, one carrying a huge bag atop his head. The tallest carrying the bag looks like he’s about seven, turns out he’s 10. The youngest is barely 3. Two of the toddlers have fuzzy orangey hair – a sign of malnutrition. The conductor hops out and calls out to the boy with the bag over his head – Replying in muffled Luganda, the boy looks down at his feet while the other four stare blankly at the matatu, wide empty and eerily cloudy grey eyes. Silence. They have 10, 000 shillings, which is barely enough to pay for two seats on the ferry to come – how they were supposed to make it from Kalangala to the ferry and from the ferry to Masaka, which is a full day’s trip with wheels? And more importantly, what were these kids doing alone? And on such a trip? The conductor opens the door of the matatu, and five little bodies with torn, dirty shreds of clothes, rocks studding their bare feet, pile in. The car drives off, slowly and silently.

The matatu finally arrives at the pier where the ferry should be (which, of course, is not there, nor is it working today – Ugandan style). Two girls from the matatu and I unload our bags and find a spot in the shade – noticing that the five kids are slinking away, all huddling and finding refuge behind the 10 year old. We call them over and offer them a few snacks, which they shyly, quietly but voraciously devour. Over the course of the next few hours as we wait by the side of the pier, their story unravels.

Their father died of AIDS and their mother sick (the Ssese islands have about 25% AIDS prevalence). She works in Masaka, traveling the 6 hour road once a week back to Kalangala to drop off food supplies for the week. Thus, the oldest (the tiny 10 year old) cares for his four younger brothers and sisters – I used to take care of the most autonomous, independent, brilliant 10 year old back in New York - no comparison - while I’d like to think that children are just children, no, its a world apart. So the eldest, being in charge of the well-being of his family and household, had to pay the school fees and was heading off searching for his mum. However, since there was no one to care for his brothers and sisters (some so young they were barely walking), he had to take them with him.

A small fishing boat putters up towards the pier, offering to take us all across. We all pile in, and I take one of the little girls on my lap. Hot, damp little feet dangle against my legs. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless, so ill-at-ease, so motherly as with this frail delicate sweaty little body on my lap- all I wanted to do was hold them, protect them, relieve them of this undeserving situation, give them everything I had on me, make it all disappear. What do you do in such a situation? The immediate was to feed them, buy them shoes, make sure that they safely arrived where they wanted, making sure they’d be ok for today and leaving them better off than when we had met them. But then what? Making sure they’d be ok for tomorrow, and maybe the day after that? But then what? But putting these adorable and heart-wrenching munchkins aside, a flood of new questions … What would happen if they had traveled all this distance and their mother was not there? 20% of children in Uganda are orphans (mostly due to AIDS) under the age of 18. There’s absolutely no infrastructure for them, nowhere for them to turn; less than a quarter have access to free services and external support. How does a situation like this occur? How can a situation like this be resolved? This is just the tip of the iceberg… triggering a chain reaction of interlinked HIV/AIDS, ABC methods (abstinence, being faithful, condoms), contraception, abortion, sexually based violence, brought forth with the greater questions of poverty that affect most of the world just outside of our comfortable doors … how do you tackle one issue, without tackling them all?

But the saddest part of the story is that this story is all but uncommon.