The acholi word for “home” or “compound” is gang (pronounced “gãŋ” for all you phonetics buffs). Anyways, I have been living with my Ugandan family in their gang for about a week now. I am happy to say they are amazing, and I this blog is about my life with them so far.
The house itself is three bedrooms, a kitchen and a common area. Our kitchen doesn’t have a fridge or a stove, but we have two grill-like instruments used for cooking that we call “anafres” in Mexico. I don’t know the name in English or Acholi, so here’s a link to the spanish Wikipedia article about it: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anafre. My bedroom is pretty small, and basically only has room for my bunkbed, the nails on the walls serving as closets, and just enough space for the door to open. I share the room with my brother Andrew. Andrew is a mystery to me, as he spends most of his days lying on his bed and testing my Acholi language knowledge by firing off long sentences and laughing at my confused look when I don’t understand what he says. He also has the unique hobby of waking me up at 7 am with strong statements that lack introductions. For example, yesterday he poked my shoulder and said “WHERE IS YOUR COLGATE?”. “Colgate” is a proprietary eponym used in Northern Uganda to refer to toothpaste. What Andrew meant was: “Hey roomie, sorry for waking you up on your day off, but I need some toothpaste and I was wondering where I might find yours”.
Normally, that’s as far as conversation between Andrew and I goes, but today was a special day. His choice of wake-me-up command this morning was “GIVE ME YOUR CLOTHES”. Even for Andrew, this was a little on the shocking side. I jumped out of my top bunk ready to explain that my relationship with him was more friendly than anything else he might be insinuating, but then I realized what he meant was this: “Hey roomie, sorry for waking you up on your off day, again, but I’m about to go do laundry and it’s come to my attention that you’re not well versed in the art of hand-washing your clothes. How about you bring your laundry on down and I’ll show you how it’s done. In fact, let’s make a day of it”.
After this, we proceeded to walk out of our home with our clothes in tow and kept going for about ten minutes (which confused me even further). We met up with a friend of his who works as a gate-keeper at a compound that has plenty of water that you don’t have to get from a well, like you do at our house. When we got there, him and his friend showed me how to hand wash clothes, and told me to give it a go. After about 30 seconds of sudsing my pants, the pair exploded in a bout of laughter and said they would wash my clothes because clearly I had no idea. I didn’t object. Once we were done, we sat down under a tree to chat and had an exciting conversation about Spanish League Football, East African Politics, the possibility of them migrating to the US, and everything in between. After about an hour, once the conversation had stagnated, I realized that Andrew’s plan was to sit under said mango tree until our clothes dried, which is a five hour process. It’s come to my attention that Ugandans are rarely in a hurry. I, on the other hand had to go work on a paper that I have yet to start (This blog got in the way). It’s easy to forget about the word “Study” in “Study Abroad” when you’re in a place that’s as amazing as Gulu.
The rest of my family isn’t quite as quirky as Andrew, but they are definitely no less interesting. I’ll start with my Ugandan mom, Pastor Karoline. Her day job is Born-Again Christian Pastor, in the afternoon she runs an organization of about 25,000 Acholi widows who she basically teaches to be more like her, because she is also a widow and has sustained a household, put all of her kids, many of her nephews, and a bunch of her grandkids through college and into great jobs. In between, she has time to grow all the vegetables her family needs in her backyard (she also has enough left over to sell in the market, one of the things she teaches the widows to do), host a muzungu kid named Jeronimo in her house, and have great conversations that go into the wee hours of the night. Mom speaks four languages (English, Acholi, Swahili, and French), and her and three of my sisters are making me teach them spanish (their Spanish is better than my Acholi), she’s lived in Tanzania, several Ugandan cities and Kenya.
I don’t think I’ll go into explicit detail about the rest of my siblings for one simple reason; I don’t know how many I have, what their relationship is to me or to each other, whether or not they live in my house full time, and how some of them came to be in our house. Don’t judge me, blog reader. For several reasons, it’s not as easy as it seems to answer those questions. The Acholi conception of siblings, parenthood, and family are very different from ours. Your cousin’s daughter is your daughter, your close neighbors are your brothers, your “auntie” can also be your sister, and everyone who walks into our house basically calls Pastor Karoline “momma”. Furthermore, if I mention them by name, you’ll probably get confused and stop reading, if you haven’t already. There are two “Winnies” (big and little), two “Chrises” (old and young) and enough guys named Dennis to start a club. There is also a Steven, a Sharon, a Monika, a Dee, a Lee, and a Desmond. These are their English names, which they use when introducing themselves to me, but they also each have Acholi names, which they sometimes use with each other. My Acholi name is Acellam (Pronounced A-che-lam, which means “the only man in the family”, a reference to my status as the single male in my study abroad group of six girls). It is also important to note that only an average of about six people sleep in the house at one time, and everyone else is either a visiting relative, a neighbor, or someone looking to talk to Pastor Karoline about life and it’s subtleties.
It’s hard to describe the socio-economic status of my family, because despite our pit-latrine, bucket shower, and lack of a fridge, my mom works on a laptop and runs a huge organization, my sister works in the administrative side of a regional bank and is working on her master’s degree, and most of the adults are college-educated. Not that this matters, because they truly are amazing people regardless of economic rank, but I think the ambiguity speaks to region’s process of development.
Ever since I arrived, this family has been nothing but welcoming and loving. They are eager to share their culture with me, even though their values are quite different from most Acholi families here. They are very progressive. They reject a lot of traditional Acholi customs, partly from education and exposure to other countries, and partly because of their strong Christian beliefs. They have also hosted ten SIT students before me, so they’re used to misinformed questions and blunders like having no idea what to do with a bucket instead of a shower head. They’re also very curious about my own culture. Fun fact: Ugandans watch “telenovelas” dubbed into english religiously. Naturally this makes my family very interested in my being from Mexico, and in the fact that my real brother’s name is “Bruno” just like the main character in the hit novela “Una Maid En Manhattan”.
That’s all for today, folks. I have a lot to talk about, so I think approaching this blog topically instead of chronologically will help to get most of the information across. Coming up, I’ll talk about the academics, the food, my understanding of Uganda’s post conflict situation, and how much I absolutely despise all the girls I’m studying abroad with. Just kidding, you guys, I know you are reading this and neglecting either a bucket bath forced onto you by your homestay family or that paper due tuesday.
– Acellam Out
