On Sunday, the rains came along with the wind, blowing the fronds off palm trees and uprooting a hibiscus plant in the yard.
The rainy season has started.In Uganda there are two rainy seasons – a longer one, lasting from March through May, and a shorter one in October and November.
On Thursday, the rain started softly, the pregnant clouds just drip-dripping, but by the time we reached the bottom of Mbuya Hill, near the Kampala office, the rain was coming down hard. As we started up the hill the car lurched back and forth as Peter, the driver, tried to avoid the rivers of ochre mud rushing down the road. As the car rocked from one side, it jolted, stalled, stopped and then started again.A plastic rosary swung back and forth, looping around the rear-view mirror. As rain covered the windshield, the blue beads and tiny cross danced to Peter’s reggae music.
Religion seems to show up a lot here. Rainstorms. Supermarkets. Introductions.
When I first met Lilian, who I would room with for about three weeks, one of the first questions she asked me was “Are you a Christian?” A little confused, I nodded. She smiled, approvingly. I had just won some serious brownie points. “And what Church?” She was visibly disappointed when I said “Catholic.”
When I was later introduced to MIHV’s Mubende driver, Ronnie said, “This is Mwange. He’s a Muslim.”
The street merchants market light-up pictures of the Virgin Mary to the cars stopped in traffic. And Eid-ul-Fitr, the last Friday of Ramadan, is a national holiday.
Sunday morning, as I walked to church with Passy, a friend who I stayed with this past weekend, she explained, “Sometimes it’s hard to get people to go to church. They don’t know that they can do no work without God.”
The night before, I had fallen asleep to Passy’s children reciting their prayers, the Luganda words flowing together into a holy stream.
Unsure of my own faith, being surrounded by such certainty is at once comforting and disconcerting.
Now the beads stop swinging. The car has stopped. “It’s out of gas,” says Peter. We’re two houses away from the MIHV office, but it’s pouring. Peter turns off the engine and the reggae and we sit, quietly, trying to discern anything beyond the windshield. Peter puts the car in neutral, and we start to roll back down the hill.
“What are you doing!?”
“Oh, it will start if we go backwards,” explains Peter.
We roll down past the offices, the gated houses and near the bottom of the hill, Peter tries again. It doesn’t start. And now we’re at the bottom of the hill.
So I get out of the car and run. The water rushes down and over my ankles as I make my way through the henna colored dirt-rivers, up the hill.
Soaking, I run and run and laugh and laugh, because here I am in Uganda, crossing the red sea.
2 comments:
Wow, sarah, thank you. I loved this post. I received a plastic rosary in the mail a few weeks ago and recycled it. 1) because it was plastic 2) it gave step-by-step instructions on-- how to pray. I drove through St. Louis, and a “JESUS” billboard lit up the highway. God was shedding her light on the cars as they pulled out of White Castle. As you say, religion “shows up.” Some people say that they only open their eyes to find evidence of God or of beauty and truth. So why- Jesus billboards, plastic rosaries- can god be turned into a commodity- like a spiritual happy meal? (btw- the Jesus on my plastic rosary- he came with a toned, six pack. hm. ) On a different note- faith, in my mind, it doesn’t exist without a dimension of doubt too.
I laughed at your last statement about the red sea. How appropriate to end that blog. It is interesting to see how much religion defines the region and its people. Do you know what the main religion is in the area you were just in? or now? Is it glaringly obvious or being an outsider, is it harder to tell (much like Ugandan vs Tanzanian). PS send me pics of you!!!
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