Jovial Journey: On the Farm

On the Farm

Sitting in a small open courtyard, trying to engage my brain to take a mental picture swearing, “I wont forget this week!” In front of me, as every morning in this home we are presented with four thermoses: three with an herbal tea from the garden and one filled with porridge, my favorite. There is an assortment of sugar, peanut butter, teaspoons and instant coffee, with a side of bananas and bread. This morning there are small homemade, fried dough pockets, filled with rice- go figure. The troops just started filling in, wiping their eyes on this early morning. As the fog rises from the hills and the sun already gains intensity, we are bound for the community center at the farm, where we will put the finishing touches on a mural we have painted over the last two days. This mural encompasses the area we are, the skills we have learned, the people we have befriended, animals and crops we pass and interact with and most of all the weather prevalent and important to this area. The community center on the farm has been built by the Ugandan Rural Support Foundation; spear headed by our warm-hearted and inspired host Peter and his partner program Groundwork Opportunities based in San Francisco. A mile away from where Peter grew up in a small village outside of Masaka city in Southwest Uganda, there is a farm on a hillside, from a birds-eye view it may look just like all the other farms in Uganda, for sustenance. But this farm is a model, a new idea, a spark in an area dried out by poverty, hopelessness and ambiguity. Here on this farm there are clean and established pens filled with hundreds of producing pigs, goats, ducks and chickens. And then: a nursery to produce a seed bank, a tree farm for fruit and shade, and a eucalyptus farm to produce timber for building. The key is, this farm is sustainable, a cycle exists to feed and thrive from its bi-products. At the top of the hill is where the animals are kept, when they are cleaned and when they defecate, the materials follow an irrigation system down to the plants, establishing an essential fertilizer, equivalent to gold (smelly, yet priceless). Another bi-product irrigation system, much more complex, enters an underground system to capture the gas- creating even more rich sustenance, used to power the growth of plants, but also electricity.

Near the animals, where the humans work side by side, is another model, tied to the idea of creating a safe and infectious place to work and grow as a community, sustaining each other just as the animals and plants do. Peter believes that the first thing people need to get out of poverty is food, and once food is on the table people are able to focus on education, skills and other forms of economic growth. After establishing a working farm Peter has created a place for milling maize and cassava root, training for sewing and sweater machines, a micro-loan system with pigs and seeds, and now he is introducing a micro-finance program, soon to be sponsored by Kiva based in San Francisco.

Living in a village is a unique experience, as a group we are welcomed into Peter’s home, and treated like royalty. I have learned how to be a host from this family more than ever before; hospitality has a whole new meaning! At the same time there is a rough edge to the “royalty” piece. Sure, as guests our guides want nothing more than to treat us: cooking for us, doing our laundry, driving us everywhere, providing evening tea and snacks. Although as a band of traveling, able and willing beings, this treatment becomes overwhelming. How do we bridge the gap? We set up cook crews, but with the fetching of water and the unknown dish cleaning system, we start to understand helping almost adds to the duties of the women in the home. As we wash our laundry in a system of eight different water buckets, each with different levels of soap and water, the women watch in unsurprised doubt that our hands are weak, and we don’t quite understand the meaning of hand washing. Often they ask:

“Do you have a machine that does this?”

”Um, yes” we say.

Its not just with the house duties we notice this “royalty” treatment. When we walk, when we drive, when we make eye contact, when we listen, people are watching us, people create a way through a crowd, offer seats at the front of the church, at the podium of community meetings; waving enthusiastically while running toward us through fields they yell “Muzungu, Muzaungu!!”

The white color, especially in a village, is not only a color and not only another human being, there is something larger, something that attracts the eye at first and then it enters a psychological pattern of thought, different for each individual. What are they thinking under those eyes, in those conversations we only wish to understand? The royalty feeling, although undyingly appreciative of the respect, is something I feel undeserving of. Maybe it’s not my skin, maybe its simply being an honored guest, although I have a very tumultuous time remaining in this mindset. After studying colonialism in Africa I cannot let the dust settle that my color represents a whirlwind of humanitarian issues. Rather than grappling with this elephant in the room, effects of colonialism are often welcomed rather than questioned, and instead we are shown respect and kindness. I cannot fight this abundance of kindness, it is refreshing and a model of how everyone should be treated. Although at times the whiteness is tangible and our group is in debate about how it feels and why.

As in any relationship, it takes a period of time for individuals to feel comfortable being completely honest with each other, although these are the moments our group is seeking, the ability to engage in deeper conversations. What are the layers of history, of poverty, of African lifestyles, of Western idealism? These are the gems when people can get to the core, and ask the questions enabling us from moving forward toward change and positive development. As a group we are fostering individual research and observations to establish ideas of how people who are stuck in a cycle of despair, move forward to care for themselves and their family, on a basic level as well as on emotional and intellectual levels. This goal is not only posed to the people of this village, or the people of Uganda or East Africa, this goal is for all of us. How can we come together as a community to support each other in positive systems that enrich our experiences here on earth?!

This is the soul of Peter Luswata, our guide. He has taught us through love and kindness that it is important to build a community, to provide a space, a home, and a place for people to come and feel honored no matter their skin or level in society. The vibrating colors we placed on the wall in the community center represent the heartbeat we have felt in this village. The mural symbolizes the palpable conversation of moving forward and embracing the horizon, full of human and agricultural potential, moving away from a painful past. Because just as Peter says “when people have food in their stomachs, the opportunities are endless”.