Team Bufumbo on Tour Day 1

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30/08/2013 - Friday

Imagine the noise of a tipper lorry unloading tonnes of tin-tacs on to corrugated sheets and you will be hearing the sound of tropical monsoon rain on the church in which we were listening to formal presentations from our Bufumbo friends. Communication was impossible. Most of the local people from Bufumbo had seen it all before. Some slept until the deluge had ended. Some stared at the mud floor as if waiting for something which might emerge as a consequence of this torrential downpower. Those from the UK took delight in the ferocity of the wind which bent the banana trees over and made the noblest and tallest trees bow to the power of the wind.

The planned games with the children had to be abandoned but even throwing a few tennis balls high into the air provided fun for the children who leapt and shrieked running through the fresh deep puddles to catch the balls.

Food threatened the day.We all knew that breakfast at the hotel would be followed by four separate official site visits to churches in the Parish. We knew that each host would have prepared generously for our arrival. No excuse would be accepted for failure to show due respect to our kind hosts. Irish potatoes, makote, cabbage, liver, meat, chicken, rice, fruit and tea appeared with amazing consistency at each place we visited. And of course the iconic Bufumbo bananas, so sweet that they were hard to avoid.The unvaried menu meant that we knew what was coming but had no chance of using different  food to stimulate our sated appetites.

One member of the party defied the usual bio=chemistry which ensures that appetite wanes with increasing food consumption. The rest of us ate frugally and tactically to make it to the finishing line but after five meals most declined an evening meal! The final meal held the usual Bufumbo surprise, New food arrived unexpectedly. Crisp, sweet fried bread, white fluffy bread, paw-paw and a small gobstopper size berry ,,,,,which was sour enough to tempt two of the party to have a macho berry-eating competition, We await the morning to see what effect this will have had on their digestive systems!!!

Tomorrow we have four more visits……..

Walking from one of the churches to another up a winding grassy path between the banana trees the procession was colourful and biblical in its pilgrimage trek. We passed mango trees, coffee trees, avocados,and paw-paw until we arrived,

We visited several houses which are so different from those in Thornbury, Mud floors and walls, bricks made from local soil, kitchens fuelled by wood and charcoal filling the air with unhealthy fumes and coating the walls with nicotine-like substances. Goats shared the kitchen as their sleeping quarters.No running water – no wardrobes, no electricity and only a hole in the ground for a toilet. Only geckos in the toilet provided a distraction for the nervous user.

The storm meant that our programme ran so late that our drive back took us from twilight to dusk to darkness. Our downward path was countered by the home-going Bufumbo residents leaving Mbale and the fields where they had been working. They returned on foot, in taxis and on motorbike.The sunset was beautiful. Huge cumulus clouds touched with pink then fiery red.

Champagne moments included;

• The usual reaction when Hedley says he has 600 cows!(most people in Bufumbo have one or two)
• Blowing bubbles and children watching just one bubble rising up-a moment of awe and wonder!
• Some children stroking Andrew’s arm-for AGES black people do not have body hair so they are fascinated by it.

Gill & Mike