COLUMN: Lessons Learned in Uganda

"We don't really know what we are doing here," I said. Sometimes in life you have to ask yourself exactly how you got where you are. I mean, I knew physically how we had gotten here. A van had dropped three of us students off in the village of Kande, in the middle-of-nowhere, Uganda. Our guide Martin was the only familiar thing in this place of banana and cassava plants, cement huts, and curious villagers. Soon after our arrival Martin had told us to follow his friend down the road, assuring us that he would follow shortly. This friend, who didn't speak English, had brought us to this strange house and then disappeared. A man came out and greeted us. We took off our shoes, then went inside and sat down on a couch facing him.

We started with polite introductions. Names were quickly forgotten. After an extremely silent silence, the strange man asked, "So, what is the problem?" The question didn't remotely match what we thought was happening. What indeed was the problem? I answered the first thing that came into my head.

"We don't really know what we are doing here. Someone just led us to this house and left us." He looked, if possible, more puzzled than before about the three white Americans who had showed up on his doorstep. Tim jumped in. "We are visiting Martin's Jaja [grandmother]. Do you know who Martin is?" The man shook his head. I remembered, a little sickly, that Martin rarely visited his home village.

After an eternity of uncertainty, Martin made an appearance. Relieved, I leaned back and let him talk to the man in soft Luganda. I then remembered that Martin had mentioned visiting the leader of the village to explain what we were doing here. This must be the man. He was the only person in the village I had seen who had the beginnings of a pot belly, spoke English, and had a tiny TV in the corner. I wondered how he watched it without electricity.

The elder, if that's who he was, was taking this all very seriously. He got up and produced a guest log for us to sign. Under "description" Rachel wrote "students," Tim wrote "visiting Martin's Jaja," and I wrote "Thank you for your hospitality." When we passed the book to Martin he chuckled when he read what we had written. He added his name, and then passed it back to the elder. The man read it, nodded gravely, and put the book away. The visit appeared to have come to an end.

As we walked down the road afterward, we erupted into held-in laughter. It was the only response we could have to the most awkward situation of our lives. "I'm so glad I didn't ask him for sugar," said Tim. "I thought at first that this was the man we were going to buy sugar from." We asked Martin what he had been talking about with the elder.

"He wants us to go the police station and do important paperwork," he explained. "He is afraid that something will happen to you. Also, he is afraid of terrorists." Martin laughed as he said this, but I had an instant vision of being locked in a Ugandan jail on suspicion of terrorism. "He thinks we are terrorists?"

"No, no. He thinks that since you are Americans, the terrorists will come find you in the village. I did not argue with him. I nodded and said, 'yes, yes'. But for me, it is not necessary. With the bureaucracy, it would be a long time to do paperwork. We are only here for three days. So that is why I agreed with everything he said, but we will not do it."

We laughed again at the thought that just by being Americans we were attracting terrorists to this tiny, remote village. Sometimes, when you find yourself somewhere completely strange with no idea how you got there, you just have to laugh.