Bag of Nasty & 3 Gallons of Milk: Rural Homestays.

From March 4-13th I lived in the district of Kapchorwa, which is considered rural/village life. It was great to see how 80% of the Ugandan population lives, but at the same time I hated it. There is so much I could talk about that this post could potentially be really long, I’ll try to keep it short and you can ask more questions if you’d like.

This is my house from the front, and Jona...right on the main road.




My host parents were Justine and Isaac Chelibei and I had an 18 year old sister and 15 year old brother (Naster and Phillip) who were both at boarding school so I never met them, then Benja (short for Benjamin) who was 8, Jona (short for Johnson) who was 6 (my mom’s nephew who’s mom couldn’t take care of him b/c she had him in high school), and Queen Esther (named Queen because she was born in 2007 when the Queen of England came to Uganda) who was 3.5. We lived in a small mud and timber house with a cow dung & ash floor (that you re-smear every week), then there was a mud and timber kitchen as well as Philip’s room. Then we also had a cow who just gave birth, a goat, a dog, and chickens. There was no electricity and I prayed everytime I went to the pit latrine b/c it was a nailed wood floor and I was scared I was going to fall through every time (I’ve heard some horror stories). I was just banking on the fact that my host mom was a very large woman…success.

My fam... except the 2 girls in the middle just showed up for the picture, they are neighbors.


Overall, my entire time there was really frustrating for many reasons:

1. I was homesick for my Mukono family and Logan the entire time.
2. I hated wearing long skirts the whole time, not being able to cross my legs, and sitting in the most uncomfortable, worst chairs ever made.
3. Communication was impossible. The don’t speak Luganda, they speak Kupsabiny which is a completely different style of language, I don’t know what you call it but its more similar to some tribes in Kenya than anywhere else, but because its not a Bantu language, not only could I not understand but I had to get used to all new sounds and another whole way of speaking English. When I would ask questions they would answer something completely different and when they asked me questions I usually had no idea what they meant or they had no idea what I was saying in my answers.
4. Mzungu. I thought it was hard to be white in Mukono but its impossible to just live in Kapchorwa as a mzungu unless you have an agenda. In one sense they thought I was completely incapable of anything, yet they treated me like royalty and they were ignorant animals. All they know about America is that Obama is our president (and they couldn’t understand why some people didn’t vote for him – policy means nothing, but his dad being Kenyan means everything) and that we have machines for everything. Every morning I would wash the dishes, and every morning my Baba (dad) asked if it was hard even though every morning I would tell him no, I wash dishes like this in America too. They also would only let me carry a 10L jerry can of water – which is usually reserved for kids. But I did carry it on my head (and its harder than you’d think).

Their questions were just really strange and about things so basic I don’t really even think about. But I guess it just shows how much we have been globalized and they haven’t even really even reached modernity in a sense. It was hard for them to understand that we all don’t have our own individual gardens/farms to sustain ourselves, but that we buy most all our food from stores.


So while I was viewed as physically incapable of anything, I was also treated like royalty. I heard many times that people were so thankful I came to visit and said that they were very honored that I would humble myself/lower myself to come to an African village. They way I was talked to was like it was still during colonial times/white man’s burden. They seemed to think that they were not worth as much, like I was superior to them – which I hated! Ive never felt so awkward, and not wanting to be white.

These kids just followed us/accompanied us to the cave. Also, rural homestays = dressing like grandmas.




There were some great things:

1.  I got to be at a Compassion International center all day Saturday because my mom taught cognitive lessons and both Benja and Jona are sponsored children… more on Compassion later because I’m going to another site this weekend with IMME. But, it was awesome.
2. My friend Amy’s house was close so we got to see each other a bunch, I even slept over at her house on Wednesday night which was so needed because we were both struggling with homestays and just needed to vent and have some solidarity.
3. We went on some hikes and I saw 2 caves and a waterfall/ the Kapchorwa scenery was gorgeous, hills/mountains and lots of green!
4. Everyone there was very nice and hospitable
5. I learned how to milk a cow and cook
6. I wasn’t in school

Finally: A Bag of Nasty and 3 Gallons of Milk


It is common when we go to the village that we have chicken for at least one meal, and most of the time the Americans are the ones who get to slaughter the chicken. I never got that chance, but we did have chicken at Amy’s house the night I slept over and the gizzard is considered a delicacy and always given to the guest of honor. Well, Amy and I ate some gizzard together… the taste wasn’t too bad but the texture was awful/impossible to chew. I call it the bag of nasty b/c when my apartment mates and I made Thanksgiving dinner together we labled the bag of turkey parts that you have to take of out the turkey the bag of nasty. Well I got to eat it – chicken style.


In Uganda, tea is very important. Everyone has tea at least twice a day, for breakfast and before bed, but then there is also break tea (b/w breakfast and lunch) and evening tea (b/w lunch and dinner). In Kapchorwa its all about the milk tea because everyone has cows. It tasted sooo good! Literally straight from the cow to the stove to your cup. I loved it, but having tea really means having 3 cups of tea or until the flask is empty. And if anyone visits, or you visit someone (which is alllllll the time), then you all stop and sit and have tea. So Amy and I calculated that in the span of 7 days, we each had about 3 gallons of milk to drink…. That’s disgusting! 3 gallons of milk all by myself in 7 days. By the end I felt like I was a cow needing to be milked.


Anyways, that was my rural homestay in a nut shell. I’m just so glad its done.