Jews are to Farming as Llamas are to Ice Skating Pt. II

After a small break for a granola bar, we went back on the farm. This was the view from one part of the property – pretty hard to beat. The reason I had a granola bar for lunch, by the way, is because that is all I eat 90% of the time. I bought two boxes before I got here, and between the constant traveling around and the lack of food quality or options at times, I try to eat those to avoid passing out (and making sure my mom doesn’t yell at me from 4,000 miles away). I haven’t had a single breakfast here, we usually have a very small lunch at around 2:30, then have a huge dinner.

For someone who loves eating as much as I do, this has been somewhat of an issue, but I have tried to pretend I am observing Ramadan and not worry about it. Anyway, back to the farm.

We walked around for a little bit more to watch people clear the fields and do some planting. One of the things I love about Uganda is that they have terrific names for everything. The picture to the left shows a thorn-type weed that was collected, which has very long (4-10”) sharp spikes along it like a vine. They call it the “wait a bit” weed, because when you walk by it, it grabs your clothes and it’s so strong that you stop or fall down, forcing you to wait a bit.

After seeing some more farming, we decided to head into Namalu, which is the town nearby. This was the one with no electricity that we passed on the way in through the mud. Wednesday’s are market day, so there were thousands of people there. It was so odd to see so many people at what seemed like such a small place. They have a population of about 20,000 (Trumbull is about 38,000 by way of comparison). Although the town is probably no more than 5-10 miles away, it takes half an hour with the bad roads and the crops in the way. You wind around all the plots, then basically make a right at a mountain and you’re there. This is the view just before that:

Because it’s not practical to drive 3 hours to M’bale every time we need to fill up on fuel for the farm, often times they will make medium purchases from a guy in Namalu who stores diesel in the back of his shed. The enterprising fuel guy also owns what he called a hotel. After going through a gate, you see the building. Each of those open barred windows is one room, which is all concrete and has a bed in the middle with a mosquito net. Certainly not much but this is hours from anything so if you’re here it seemed like the nicest option.

This is a picture of the market – it was a little sparse when I took the picture but there were thousands of people around when we got there. Also, I was standing on the back of a pickup truck and trying to hold on, so my options were limited.

This is a shot from the way back to the farm – some of the landscape reminds me of Ireland or something..it’s very green. You don’t picture things like this when you think of Africa but there are plants everywhere. Apparently Uganda is considered one of the most fertile countries in the world.


On the way back, we passed over what’s called an Irish bridge (I don’t know what the deal is with naming everything Irish). It is a concrete pass where a small river can flow off to one side, allowing a car to basically drive through the river. There were a few kids playing and swimming off to our left when we drove over it. I have a great video from the truck of a kid doing a slip and slide belly flop that I’ll upload when I can.

Before we got all the way home, we stopped at a local Karamajong village. They grow some of the same plants that we are using, but they grow them at a very small scale, and often just for fences or to sell. Jatropha, one of our best crops, is actually poisonous on the outside, and for most of history has been used for fences and border crops – most people hadn’t realized its oil potential until relatively recently. We ended up buying some straw for brooms, and all the kids wanted to give me a tour so we walked around all the huts. We also saw wild cotton growing which was pretty cool – I picked this off and it felt just like a cotton ball but it had some seeds in it.

We hit a little more “traffic” as we got towards the entrance to the farm.

When were pulling up to the lodge, another truck passed us in the opposite direction. Mohammed, one of the engineers, yelled out from the truck that he had promised me a BBQ, and he was sure to deliver. In the back of the truck was our dinner…a goat. Now, I love goat as much as the next guy (I had already been served it twice), but there’s something a little disconcerting about watching dinner being driven up to the kitchen. Fortunately, I didn’t watch the process by which it went from happy goat to dinner goat, and it was delicious.

Today was a great day, but now that we’re back at the house I’m very tired. This is what my socks look like right now.

Time for a little break.