Of cattle-keepers and the queen

"If you squint a little so you can't see the banana plantations, it looks just like Italy, " I said as we drove early this week to Mbarara in western Uganda. Mbarara has lovely rolling hills, with little houses tucked into the folds, cultivated fields, green trees and plants dotting the hillsides. It is a far cry from Bugolobi with its chaotic market and mud-hut settlements. Mbarara is in what they call "cattle-keeper" country, and the cattle-keepers are relatively well off.

We were there for two days of training of the rural reporters for the New Vision. They were an eager bunch, wanting to learn. "Mr. Bill" and "Ter-ay-za," as they call us, presented in between tea time (they have two teas per day, one in the a.m. and one in the afternoon) and lunch. It seemed as soon as we started talking, bam! It was tea time again!

After the second day we decided to treat ourselves to a dinner that was not the traditional food we had been eating non-stop since we got there Sunday night. Matoke is okay, but our American stomachs can get tired of it. So we wandered along (we weren't driving this time ) and found a driver named Enoch to take us to a "fancy" hotel on the outskirts of town. Enoch owns 12 cows which he milks in the mornings, and someone helping him milks them in the evening when he is driving. The milk from the morning goes to market, the evening milk goes to his family. He says he knows a place in the district where one man owns 5000 cows!

We arrived at the hotel to find it was under construction for when the queen comes in November of this year for a Commonwealth meeting. (Everything in Uganda is under construction for the queen - can she possibly know what she's in for?) Enoch said he would stand in the middle of the road to see the queen when she goes by. We picture her covered in red dust, but of course they will close the roads when she is traveling; we didn't tell Enoch, but we have also heard she might fly to Queen Elizabeth National Park, in which case there will be lots of disappointed cattle-keepers.

One thing we've learned here is that nothing is like what you expect. The dining room was under construction, so we ate dinner with the sound and smell of a Skilsaw by our shoulders. And it was buffet night: matoke and other traditional foods. This time that included ox liver, so we did have some variety!