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.
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M’Bale and the Great Journey

M’bale is about 60 kilometers (you see what I did there?) south of Namalu. M’bale is the second largest city in Uganda by population, but it looks nothing like the developed areas of Kampala – it is essentially one big town. Edmund (our Controller) drove me up there, and we met up with George, who is our head of operations and whose father is the primary reason we have access to this land.

The market was filled with people buying and selling all kinds of food, mostly homegrown. Young boys would stand with identical bags of potatoes for sale and then argue with customers over whose were better. From our standpoint (feeding workers), the food can get expensive, but it is otherwise very cheap – a 100kg bag of rice that was up to my chest was $70-$80. Edmund told me that Uganda actually has a decent sized Indian population, and many of them sell at the M’bale market.

We drove all over town buying food, fuel and some supplies. Most merchants don’t want to provide receipts, primarily because then they have evidence of a sale that they would likely have to pay taxes on. To solve this, our accounting team has had to create their own receipt book that they bring everywhere, and then chase shop owners all over the place to sign.

The town sits at the base of Wanale Hill (a mountain), and feels like a cross between Denver, the old west, and Manhattan circa Gangs of New York. After spending 3 hours getting to M’bale, and another 3 making purchases, we grabbed lunch at a casual restaurant. I asked to wash my hands, and was directed to a sink in a back alley with a communal bar of soap. I declined, thinking that would almost certainly make my hands dirtier. George was fasting for Ramadan, but Edmund was there, and kept asking me if I wanted to try his Irish. While I thought this was either an extremely uncomfortable request or that he knew Matt Kurz, it turns out that’s what they call their potatoes, which I find hilarious.

Edmund then left, and I was now in George’s hands for the first time as we headed to Namalu. It was 3:45 PM. Namalu is 60 km away. This will be important shortly. George, a driver and I all shared the front of a pickup, with 5 workers in the back. George mentioned that we should take a shortcut, because we had people in the back and we should avoid getting a ticket ($25) at a police checkpoint.

Shortcut, as a general rule, implies going slightly out of one’s way, perhaps utilizing a different road. Where we went lacked roads completely, so this wasn’t possible. While this picture to the left appears to be someone’s yard, it is actually where we were driving. Once we got out of the bumpiest trail I’ve ever been on (Note: that statement lasted approximately 2 hours), we got back on a road and had some more Oneonta-esque views, along with one event that would probably never happen on the way to school.


We stopped for some extra flour at a trading post (?!) , and a bunch of children ran over to our truck and started giggling uncontrollably at…me. One little boy was walking around selling sugar cane stalks so I bought them for the workers, which seemed to be a big hit. We then headed on a dirt road towards a mountain in the distance, which George said was near the farm.

The problem with flat land is that distance is very misleading. I say that, because after driving another 3 hours, we were still apparently not any closer to the hill. Again, I would like to point out that this is a 45 mile trip. We drove, and drove, and lightning started, and we drove some more, and we still seemed to be no closer.

The one cool thing was the sunset – the land on either side is savannah and dotted with trees, so it had a very Africa feel to it. The pictures don’t do it justice but this was the first time I really felt away from everyone. It didn’t hurt that for 3 consecutive hours of driving, we hadn’t seen a single person or structure.



Anyway, after literally 7 hours, we arrived at Namalu and it was pitch black. It’s a town of 20,000 but looked like nothing was there because they don’t have electricity, despite the size. This is one of the things we want to help change.

A Lt. Colonel in the Ugandan military shook my hand and welcomed us to the farm, which was a little odd. They help guard the fields, but when you really (really) have to go to the bathroom, an AK-47 is the last thing you need. We then got a tractor escort.

It had rained the night before, and not all the roads to the farm have been properly graded, so it’s about half quicksand and mud. This may be hard to believe for people who know me well, but our truck got stuck in a ditch. A big ditch. When we tried to get out, the truck slid on its side at about 30 mph, and I almost went flying out the window. This story sounds very familiar.

At one point, we hit a huge bump and 2 minutes later the driver started hysterically laughing. When I asked why, George told me two of the people in the back went flying off the truck into the mud. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but this adventure was the first time I thought the wedding speech was in danger of not happening.

Four assists later, we made it to the farm, and the living quarters. I’m tired so I’ll save the description for Wednesday’s post, but let me just say now - if your drinks don’t come from a hole in the ground or a goat, you’re not roughing it.
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The Road to M’bale

Today we set off for…the north. Our operations are in the Karamoja region, which is a roughly 300-mile area in the northeast of the country. The actual town adjacent to our facility is called Namalu, however it is very remote and has no electricity, so before heading there, we went to the closest real city – M’bale.

First we had to get even that far. It’s about a 3 hour drive, give or take 11 cow-related traffic jams. This was the first time I was out of Kampala, and so it was a very different vibe. Kampala is either stable, relatively well off structures, or very poor shacks, but this was something else entirely – I saw some huts. I saw very few (3) white people in Kampala, but I’m assuming us pale folk don’t leave the city much, because people were staring at our car every time we slowed down and my lack of melanin was revealed.

Surprisingly, the drive reminded me almost exactly of the drive to Oneonta (see above). You leave the city and along the way you are surrounded by grass and hills, with some occasional small towns thrown in every so often. The fact that the grassy hills were inhabited by herding nomads, as opposed to enormous nativity scenes and snow, is just a minor difference.

This picture probably would have made the front page of the Daily Star, for what it’s worth:

We passed through a very large forest that is apparently one of the largest in Uganda. It’s pretty funny, you pass through enormous trees on both sides, come to a clearing, it gets wider and wider to lead you out of the forest, and just when you think God himself will appear, there is a giant billboard for Bell beer. This is a shot looking back as we left the forest. Considering all I've drank for 4 days is bottled water, I thought about consuming the billboard itself.


We also drove past a hydro plant, but I learned that hydro power only accounts for 2% of the country’s usage – the rest is mostly burning wood, which has been an environmental and deforestation problem. The coolest part, though, was when I realized the river we drove over was the Nile. It’s not Egypt, but you’re not messing around if you’re near the Nile River. You can see some of the power lines in the top left of the picture.

Once we get to M’bale it should be a pretty crazy day, but there were two other remarkable things about the drive up: my first actual hut picture, and a very large brewery, which you could smell for miles. M'bale: Swahili for Beer. (As an aside, most people in the country have a tribal dialect, then also speak Swahili so they can communicate outside their tribe. Many people also speak English, even outside the city. They also drive on the left side of the road, which means that the driver sits on the right. This also means that if you attempt to get in on that side as a passenger, people laugh at you).



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