Mountains of the Moon and Meat Sticks

Where are my clouds that float in crystalline blue sky piled high like mounds of fluffy whipped cream? “It’s the dry season, Mum,” my companions tell me.   Our previous three visits to Uganda were in the rainy season.   A heavy haze hangs over fields and limits visibility as we start our six hour journey to Nsenyi.  It will take longer, because we have several appointments along the way, and of course there is always the meat sticks! 

We’re driving the Bwarara Road, an excellent highway for skewered chicken legs and chunks of beef roasted on open fires.  “The best spot is ahead,” Fr. Peter says.  We pull over.  Men and women rush to our SUV’s windows with baskets of avocados, papayas, sodas and barbecue.  Stacked meat sticks  teeter-totter  as vendors vie for position.  Our Ugandan team leader, Selevest, who I have always known as an animated man, becomes a study in chiseled stone.  He shrewdly assesses the offerings, his eye roves over the goods, selecting this and that.  Volleys of words fly between him and a woman.  We don’t understand the language, but we know they are bargaining.  His offer is not accepted.  Eventually, he grunts to the driver who pulls away.  The woman runs alongside our car and yells out.  The car stops.  Selevest opens the community purse.  Uganda shillings pass through the window and she hands over a papaya large enough to need its own seat in our car!  Selevest juggles the purchases and we scramble to make room.   Rolling again, we pray a hearty blessing over the food, before our friends rip into the meat sticks.

Warthogs edge the road, herds of Ugandan kobs, a type of antelope, dot the plain, and a two-foot tall Colobus monkey drops from a tree.  He lopes across the road and dives into the scrub.  Long silvery hair flies out from his shoulders, like a silken cape billowing behind him. 

We speed toward the Rwenzori Range, the Mountains of the Moon.  Heavy dust obscures familiar emerald terraced hillsides and cascading streams of water.   We turn off the highway and bump along the red earth to our final destination.   Fr. Peter jumps out to open the twelve-foot iron security gate.  Fresh cut banana stalks tied with bouquets of yellow flowers stand at attention alongside the road like an honor guard to greet  us. 

“Welcome home!”  Young women with brilliant smiles, their heads wrapped in bright patterned cloth, run from the house.  “Welcome home,” swirls around us until even the Mountains of the Moon echo the greeting.  Children race toward us from every direction.  When we make eye contact, they laugh, drop their heads and shyly peek at us.  Finding us happily watching them tickles their delight and big grins spread across their faces. 

The power is out tonight.  After prayers and goodnights, Ed assembles our mosquito tents.  We crawl into bed, zip ourselves in, and flick off our headlamps.   In moments, Ed’s sleeping.  Our room is black.  I wave my hand in front of my face to test whether or not I can see it.  I can’t .   But as I close my eyes a jumble of happy images, loved ones all over the world, Mountains of the Moon and meat sticks go round in my mind.