As you know, this week was the rural home stay portion of my Uganda Studies Program here at UCU. Well, I survived and actually had a great time living the hut-life for a week. It was surely a spring break to remember.
For some reason all my home stay stories start off with a perquisite story (if you remember before my Mukono home stay I was told it was the most ‘rustic’ one), well naturally, there had to be some fun added dimension to my home stay experience. The week before we left for Siroti (7 hour drive from UCU), I had 5 papers due, I was stressed, and I had not heard the best things about rural home stays. I heard many stories about loneliness, gender roles, boredom, and other negative opinions. To say the least I was not looking forward to home stays and at 11pm on Thursday (the day before we left) I still had one more paper to finish. That night, many of the USP students did not feel ready to go, but we were excited for a week away from classes, and were hoping for a good rural homestay experience. Nothing great, but nothing awful, just okay mission accomplished take me back to what I now consider civilization.
Anyways, that night I cried for the first time on the whole Uganda trip just from being overwhelmed and I think homesick for the first time. No big deal, but the story gets better. I went to breakfast Friday morning with my friend Angela, and at breakfast in the dining hall, some guy, who I never had seen before, came and sat with us and prophesized over me. He did not even look at Angela, but went on for ten minutes or more about how Uganda will be my Egypt this week---for you OT scholars, how I will go through trials and suffering just like the Israelites in Egypt, but to remember God is with me and that He feels every tear that I cry. He said to cling to God during this period of time because I will reach the Promise Land, and once I am there I will be so much better for it, and can help others when they are in their “Egypt.” He said that he had a few dreams about me and in the dreams I had been crying, he had wanted to approach me on campus a few other times, but I had seemed to busy so he was very excited that he caught me at breakfast before I left for this “journey” which he actually had no idea about my departure for hut life in T-minus 1 hour. Needless to say, it freaked me out, though it was somewhat encouraging, because my emotions were already charged. Thus, I went into my rural homestay with that prophecy…
If you are getting nervous for me, I’ll let you know now, my rural homestay experience was not Egypt and I did make it to the Promise Land. I ended being paired with another USP student for the homestay. I was super excited when I found this out and it was with a girl on the trip who I did not know to well. (We actually sat next to each other on the plane to Uganda but had not been too close). Caitlyn and I had a blast during our week. Our family was amazing and, yes, we lived on a compound that had 5 huts that formed a circle. There was a girls hut, 2 boys huts, our parents hut, and a kitchen hut. We lived with our mother (Toto), daddy, grandmother (Tata), 3 brothers—Emmanuel, Stephen, and Enoch (our other brother Andrew was at school and another one was married), sister Sarah, and our cousin Faith. I really enjoyed having a father figure on this homestay, and conveniently, our daddy was a retired social worker…perfect! Our mother was so sweet and our Tata did not speak any English. Emmanuel is 30 years-old and is a Pastor, and Sarah is a nurse. Family is what mattered in our compound and we learned a lot about village life being “a way of life, not a standard of living.” It was so nice to be away from the craziness, dirt, traffic, and life of Mukono and to go to the country. The best example of the village being a way of life is that Emmanuel studied in Kampala for 5 years, but came back home because it is his and his family’s way of life. Though there is no electricity, we lived in huts, fetched water from the bore hole, and everything was subsistence living, it is still an appreciated and actually beautiful way of life, not a low standard of living.
It is really hard to describe my homestay experience, but I am so thankful Caitlyn was there with me—not only for the time we spent together, but now I have someone to talk to about it. During my time there I slaughtered another chicken that I ate for dinner (who am I?), plowed a field with 2 oxen, uprooted casova, cooked food, shelled g-nuts for hours, washed dishes and clothes, attended a funeral, went to church, went on evening walks every night with our daddy, had family fellowship every night, bathed from a bucket, fetched water with jerry-cans from the bore hole, at millet bread and beans every day, and just lived life simply, yet wonderfully in a village in the middle of Uganda. So people in Uganda have problems saying the name “Marybeth” they either just want to call me “Mary” or “Beth” or my favorite “Mary’s Birth”…the birth of Mary, the mother of our Savior haha. Caitlyn introduced herself as Caitlyn Rebecca Black….they thought her name was Rebecca the whole time, and I may have slightly played a part in calling her Becky (she did not appreciate that but it was funny). We liked to name everything, we named our pig Wilbur..i’m glad we were not there when we ate it.
During our the first part of the week, our neighbor died and we attended the funeral and the burial. It was definitely an interesting and actually really cool experience. The first day Caitlyn and I carried firewood to the home of late Paul because that is what the community does, they bring food, water, firewood, etc. At the funeral there were literally 1,000 people. The women cooked massive amounts of food for all the mourners and the men dug the grave and chopped firewood. It was s true community gathering which was really special. The second day we brought jerry-cans of water and helped sorted beans and such. Then, the women were asked to go fetch firewood. We looked like moose as we carried huge pieces of wood on our backs. The community was so thankful and appreciative that the white people were engaging with the community. We were thanked in Ateso (language) too many times and our brother said that we would be a legend here for the next 10years at least because we brought firewood to the funeral.
My favorite part about rural homestay was our evening walks with our Daddy. Our daddy was older, probably about 70 years-old, but he was very active as he would ride his bike to the market everyday then come home and take us on anywhere from 1hour – 3 hour evening walk. He wanted us to see the community and learn about which was so neat. We went to the water tanks, climbed a mountain to see a water tank, a safe water spring, a few markets, and a fish pond. Daddy would always buy us purple Mirinda (soda) and we would sip it while listen to African music in the markets.
Another favorite from rural homestay was our family fellowship every night. At night we had tea time around 8pm then would have dinner at around 10pm (so late), but I got to be a kid as we ate everything with our fingers and sitting down on a mat. Fellowship was every night and the whole family would gather in one of the huts and sing (they would yell and clap) worship music, then we would pray, then someone would read from a devotional called Rhapsody Realities. It was precious; especially as our sister would yell/sing “sing hallelujah,” “dance hallelujah,” “pose hallelujah”
All in all rural homestay was a wonderful experience and I really enjoyed many parts of it—like bathing from a bucket outside during a lightening storm or under a blanket of stars and seeing shooting stars. My family was wonderful, but at the same time I was ready to leave, yet I definitely could have done it again.
After the week was over, we all met up at Sippi Falls and had a two day retreat. We climbed Mt. Elgon and hiked three waterfalls. We got to swim in them and just play under the heavy streams of water. Some of the Ugandans from Honors College met us there which was tons of fun to hang out with them away from UCU. My host parents packed me so much food to take back on the bus ride---gnuts that I shelled & roasted, chapate, cabbage somasas, mendazi (my favorite thing ever…basically fried donought balls), and some baby bananas. The fruit in our garden was amazing…oranges, bananas, mangos, OH MY! I am really going to miss the fruit when I get back, especially how inexpensive it is…but I’m not going to lie I cannot wait for some food besides rice & beans, posho, cabbage, and sweet potato. If anyone wants to take me out for ice cream or just a sandwich when I get back that would be amazing! Well, there is so much more that happened on rural homestay and with the retreat, but these are just glimpses…even more of a motive to take me out for real food to get the full scoop huh??????
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