Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
The hour of reckoning, the day of doom, must elicit a look on the human face which is among those things transcending place or time. We arrived at Uganda Christian University at the end of the first week of final exams and just before the beginning of the second week when pen to paper or mouse to screen stand in as prototypes for that Apocalyptic opening of books.

As a Belmont nursing instructor, I recognized that look immediately. Something about the tension around the eyes and the furrow in the brow tells the story. Students, alone or in groups, huddled around the campus with wrinkled wads of notes in urgent study sessions, perhaps testimony to books which had too long been unopened.

We had smoothly descended to Entebbe amidst towering black clouds in which lightening flickered. A young Ugandan sitting across the aisle from us said it was the start of rainy season, August through December. He, a theology student at a Catholic university near Chicago, was returning to Uganda for a short visit with his family. Subsequent encounters with Ugandans these past few days have reinforced the first impression he gave us of his people: warm friendliness, soft-spoken courtesy, and the musical lilt and roll of East African English.

There is only one chance for a first impression but first impressions are not created ex nihilo nor are they one way. We would give as well as receive first impressions over the next few days. “Most of the world thinks of Americans as arrogant and shallow,” a speaker at the Fulbright orientation in Washington D.C. told a large group of this year’s Fulbrighters, “and you will either affirm or challenge that belief.”

After some nervous pondering over this, I decided to put it out of my head. One of my late mother’s maxims was, “It is what it is and we go forward from here.” Protesting prejudgments over much by word or deed was more likely to affirm than challenge. We would act true to ourselves, the good and not so good, and expect no less from others.
A driver from the embassy met us at the Entebbe airport, located south of Kampala on the shores of Lake Victoria. (Incidentally, I had been comforted earlier in the day by a Dutch airport official asking me if Entebbe was in the U.S. An American friend, with much more excuse for her knowledge of world geography, had blithely told me I ought to visit China while in Uganda since China was just next door.) Joseph loaded our bags into his Toyota van, and, jumping into the right front driver’s seat, proceeded to give us our first experience on Ugandan roads.

Traffic accidents, after HIV and malaria, are reported to be the third leading cause of death in Uganda. Generally speaking, one drives on the left side of the road but in reality, biggest and fastest gets the middle right of way after, of course, theoretically at least, pedestrians and bicycles. The statistics speak for themselves.

Uganda Christian University in Mukono, something of an eastern suburb of Kampala, is in a location which has been described as paradise. Temperatures hardly ever go above 80 degrees and rarely below 60. A profusion of trees and flowers meets the eye at every turn and a profusion of birds the ear. Two dominant bird sounds: a loud chuckling from a black and white hornbill and cooing from members of the dove family. A palm tree in front of the student cafeteria was decorated with weaver bird nests. (See photo)The spacious university campus sits on the side of a steep hill covered with trees, attractive buildings roofed in either red tile or colored tin are scattered in functional groups.

We have been assigned a two-bedroom apartment and are spending our first few days figuring out how to live here. The apartment is joined to a guest house where we can have our meals until we can buy groceries and cook for ourselves. (See photos of the front of the apartment and the front yard.) One faucet in the backyard has water which is safe for drinking. The “domestic” water piped to the house is most definitely not safe and comes out of the faucets brown-tinged. One of us goes to the faucet a couple of times a day to get water in a plastic container for drinking and for brushing teeth. (See photo).

I will be doing our personal laundry by hand in a bucket and drying it on the clothesline conveniently positioned in our backyard. I did a trial run on Saturday and found it easy enough. Hired help is likely to do bigger items such as sheets and towels. We do have an electric iron provided for us: neatly pressed clothing is an absolute requirement at this very conservative university. More on that later.

Not quite Indian curry and not quite the cardamom flavored Somali cuisine, Ugandan food, so far, has been delicious with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Two days we’ve had chicken with rice and yesterday we had baked tilapia fish out of Lake Victoria in flavorful brown gravy and “smashed Irish.” Some interesting mental images evoked by this term were soon corrected: “smashed Irish” are mashed potatoes. This morning my father and I had one of our favorite breakfasts: oatmeal right out of the box.

“Stop picking them out,” my father ordered. “Habar (mother) Halima said if bugs could kill, half of the Abgal tribe would have died long ago.” Irradiated milk for long shelf-life comes in boxes; I smiled, poured the milk in, and didn’t give the crawling bugs another thought. I wasn’t going to let my father out-old-missionary me!

Actually, this area of Uganda seems to have fewer bugs than middle Tennessee. We sleep under mosquito nets but I have yet to see or hear a single mosquito and have seen only one or two flies—maybe—since we arrived. The windows have screens on them but we and others leave doors hanging wide open with no intrusion of insects or other unwelcome guests so far. I relish the chance to continue the open windows and doors I enjoyed so much in Germany.
Besides the expected liveliness of music and dance in the Anglican Church service on Sunday, the priest unexpectedly gave the third Sunday marriage banns for a couple intending marriage within a few weeks. “If anyone knows of any reason why these should not be married, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.” Beginning and ending the service, heads bowed for a few minutes in silent reverence. Respectful behavior is required in clothing as well. Ugandans expect dress for men and women to be, well, “spiffy.” This includes high heeled dress shoes for women. This is going to be a challenge for my menfolk and myself who prefer clothes to be, well, at least slightly “scruffy.” I devoutly hope they will cut us some slack in the dress department as ignorant and uncivilized Americans.