Breaking Rocks In The Hot Sun
Thinking I should probably visit the building site at least once while I was here, I reluctantly decided to forego my cuddle time with the babies and try my luck as a builder for the day. Before we hit the building site though we had important business at the Neighbourhood project. Today we would be giving out the showbags we’d prepared for the ladies.
If our reception on the first day had been raucous and over-the-top, today it exceeded our expectations and was even wilder. As we piled into the steamy, packed sewing room of over 150 excitable women, with the crowd overflowing outside on either side of the building, we were clapped and cheered with ear-piercing magnitude, like we were superstars. The tribal drums started up and the roof-raising singing was incredible. Handbags and water bottles and whatever other objects they had in their possession were placed high above their heads as they danced and clapped rhythmically, spinning in circles and raising their hands heavenward.
Kathy and Stuart from our team, stood up and did their best to encourage the women and express our gratitude for their overwhelming welcome and hospitality. Our team then proceeded to make its way around the bustling room, distributing the gift bags containing rice, sugar, oil, beans and soap. It was our Oprah moment: “You get a bag, you get a bag, you get a bag!” Our hardly extravagant gifts were received with such euphoria and it was so rewarding to see their sheer joy at receiving these goody bags despite their humble contents.
After this we filed back outside and were treated to a colourful display of traditional African dance, complete with loud drumming and clapping and more Beyoncé-worthy booty bouncing than you could poke a stick at. Adrian from our team was dragged in to join the dance troupe and though his less than bootylicious moves were extremely entertaining to watch and his gallant attempt at matching their moves didn’t go unnoticed, we don’t think he’s ready to give up his day job just yet. Josh was also called on to bust some moves, almost busting a gasket in the intense African sunshine.
Emotional embraces and fond farewells behind us, the buses bound for babies and buildings bounced along the dusty road to their respective destinations. I had packed my work boots in my bag, having only worn my sandals to the Neighbourhood. Toby gave me a concerned talking to about my inappropriate footwear before arriving at the building site. Nice to see the shoe was now on the other foot (pun intended). Ive trained him well.
We had a brief stop at a Gulu supermarket to replenish our snack supplies. It cost us thousands. Currency conversion has never been my strong point but with so many zeros on the end of each bank note, you have to think twice before handing over the thousands of shillings required in cash for a modest purchase. With it forecast to stay hot all day, a couple of us bought some wide-brimmed hats to keep off the sun. Sam’s choice was a rather splendid floppy red number adorned with a flashy pink leopard-skin ribbon. He wore it with pride but did garner some interesting looks and comments as we meandered along the pavement back to the bus.
Our bus and it’s ragged contents (that was us) was stopped by a very serious looking, highly armed policeman and given the once-over before we were cleared to proceed on our half hour journey, through the sparsely populated rural areas, up to Bobby. There was a smattering of small clumps of African huts gathered together behind banana trees. With their thatched rooves they wouldn’t have looked out of place transplanted onto a pristine beach somewhere on a luxurious Fijian island.
The Watoto Agribusiness Enterprise, as it’s called, is another of Watoto’s brilliant practical strategies to help the Ugandan people climb their way out of poverty. The site is massive and already houses a few recently constructed buildings, with more, like a lecture theatre, slated for development. The plan is to bring some highly trained professors of agriculture to the project from the USA, housing them on the site. They will then train the locals in the art of agriculture with a working farm and market onsite to help fund the locals’ study. Partnerships with other North American Universities will mean agriculture students undertaking degrees can also pay their own way to come and study at the facility as part of their training, injecting further funds into the Ugandan community. Not only will the local students have bona fide qualifications, they’ll be able to train up others to be self-sustainable. Our work on building the greenhouses is a small but important cog in this giant wheel.
The photos I’d seen of the site didn’t do it justice, the rich red dirt striking in real-life. The team of hard-working Ugandans was already in full-swing when we arrived. Today’s main tasks were to dig trenches around the perimeter of the greenhouses and concrete the water tower in place. Our boys had a wager going on how many cement-mixer loads it was going to take to fill the four pits around the tower’s legs. With guesses ranging from 10 to 32, no two people allowed the same guess. Gus kept an ongoing tally with his impressive, official scoreboard of stones arranged in Roman numerals. The tension was high as the barrow-loads kept coming and the tally was climbing. After a monumental effort, Peter was rewarded with the title, having successfully anticipated the twenty mixer loads it took to fill the holes. The team effort was fantastic! 20 mixer loads, 80 wheelbarrow loads, 60 boxes of gravel and 40 boxes of sand! That tower was not going anywhere in a hurry.
I spent a bit of time with Kathy, David and Adrian, shovelling dirt from the perimeter. It was hot, hard work – a far cry from snuggling with babies. At least I can tell my grandchildren one day, I’ve done my time in the trenches. The American man behind the project; lover of big machines, was Brent. Brent spent most of the day tearing around in his Bobcat like a lunatic. The man was crazy. Nearly everyone on our team could tell stories of their lives flashing before their eyes as that erratic Bobcat with Brent at the helm, ducked, weaved or zipped within an inch of them. He was particularly speedy when reversing so we had to give him a wide berth.
About halfway through the day it was discovered that the bus that had gone to Baby Watoto had broken down. Our bus had to rescue the stranded, depositing some at the hotel and some back to Bobby with us. Molly and Lexi had returned with their boots on, as had Josh, Kirsty and Michael. It was just the injection of energy our rapidly flagging team needed. Josh had struck up a friendship with the cook, Annette, who was onsite each day to feed the Ugandan workers. She had over an hour’s walk to work each day so Josh, wanting to do something special for her, had decided to buy her a bike. He and Kirsty had presented her with her new two-wheeled beauty and she was a picture of absolute joy. She was touched by his act of kindness and proudly rode all over the site to show it off. It was a memorable moment when our bus passed her riding along the side of the road. We were hooting and hollering out the window, her smile as wide as any I’ve seen.
It was great to meet and chat to the friendly and hard-working Ugandan builders. I met James, Maurice, Ambrose and Kennedy. The sun was vicious today and the work was not easy yet not one of them ever uttered a single word of complaint. It is simply not in their nature to whinge. I wish I could say the same for myself. I’ve heard the term for white people like us was “Muzunga” so I asked James if this term was used Africa-wide. He laughed so much when I said it, he was buckled over. Every time I said “muzunga”, he cracked up laughing. I think it’s safe to say he knew what I meant.
Once again the Ugandans climbed death-defying heights to secure the frame of the greenhouse, giving us all heart palpitations. Swaying in the breeze up there, the blue sky behind them. We could only relax once the job was done!
Everyone worked their butts off today and it was fun to sit around in the shade at the end of a hard day’s work and chew the fat. Stuart enquired whether any one of us had a Bobcat licence. Sam and Toby both enthusiastically volunteered but their lack of qualifications was a slight issue. Jacob piped up to say he’d driven a police car on Grand Theft Auto but that didn’t cut the mustard either. Toby, still reeling from his loss to David in a pole-climbing race earlier in the week, challenged David to an arm wrestle. It was a tight match but in the end Toby reigned supreme, evening up the ledger.
We found out this afternoon that Delwyn’s butterfly brooch pattern will now be incorporated into the Watoto shop. They will sew them onto headbands and sell them to the public. Delwyn is suitably chuffed.
