#46: Visiting Atirir

Yesterday we went on our first village visit in Uganda since being in the country this time, to a place called Atirir. The drive out there was about 1 ½ or 2 hours long partly due to road conditions. The first ¾ of the trip, the road was tarmac, but it felt like we were traveling by boat hitting lots of waves rather than a smooth road. The last leg of the journey introduced us to road construction. We somehow missed the road “diversion,” or as we would call it detour sign, and ended up driving on the part of the road that was under construction. We took a little video of what it is like to ride in a car in Uganda. If you’re interested take a look, but be warned, it is a bumpy road. 🙂

The area is not super lush and fertile like some areas, but the people still seemed to be surviving well. There were not many big trees around, mostly there were scraggly bushes. There were a few trees for shade, though. I saw a few mango trees and others I am not yet familiar with. The main crop right now is cassava, which is a starchy root that is sometimes eaten like a potato.

The houses that we came across were all square, one room houses made out of mud and had thatched grass roofs, most of which looked like they had seen better days. The houses had no windows and only one door, made out of wood. Each house had a pole in the middle to support the roof. This apparently is not customary in all villages. Our “tour guide” (a Ugandan friend of ours named George) made it a point to show us the pole and if we could not see it in a house for some reason, he would ask the owner of the house if they had a pole.

The church where the discipleship course was held was actually really nice to many we have been in. By looking at the picture I’m sure many of you are thinking, that’s nice? But the fact that it is a long term building with a tin roof, doors, and windows makes this a very nice building.

We had fun wandering around the area before the discipleship meeting started and were able to learn a lot of things about the way the people in the village live. We learned how they make their own charcoal, how they make their roofs for their houses, how to know when the kasava is ready to be picked or if it has already been picked, how to know where the boundary for each family’s land ends, and that they separate their bath house from their toilet area. The most interesting thing to me was that we found out that a bicycle is like the most important thing for somebody to own. It is the first thing someone will get. Some people even sell their land to get a bicycle. Can you imagine selling all your property or a chunk of it to buy a bicycle? That just baffles my mind, but then again, a bicycle is a lot faster than walking and cheaper than any other mode of transportation.

We really did enjoy our first experience in the village this time around and look forward to the next time we go out.