Bigodi-the other side of the park

The first time on the other side of the park was extremely interesting.  This is the side where the Bakiga (Ba-Chi-ga) live. They came from the southwestern part of Uganda looking for land. We drove around looking at the park boundaries—on some gnarly roads. We went up close to this village on the border and ran into some women and we asked if we could interview them about land use histories. When they took us to their house, the husband came out with this kind of guitar and started to perform for us. He sang a song about the first Mukiga who flew in a plane—sounds weird but it was really pretty. We conducted the interview.  They were kicked out of the corridor to the south and weren’t given any compensation for moving and they moved from land that was about 20 acres to probably less than 5 acres. We took their pictures and he sang for us again then right before we left, the old women brought out her eviction papers.  Joel and Abe said that they had never seen the papers before. It told everything about their land and their family. It was really interesting.

After that, we went back to Bigodi to where one of the libraries that Joel, Gosia, and Freerk support through their Books for Uganda Foundation.  Basically, they do book drives and donations and set up these libraries in these towns. They pay a librarian and have literacy classes in English, Rukiga, and Rutoro. They have encyclopedias, National Geographics, children’s books, novels, etc. They also purchase books in the two local languages. They opened this particular library last August and they have adult literacy classes with 40+ people—mostly women! It’s such a great little foundation that is really growing faster than they had expected. Kate and I are going to work with Joel to get the word out a little more and so they can support more libraries in the area.

While I was there, I was bitten by a tsetse fly—didn’t feel good at all. But I think I’m in the clear because I jumped immediately and it didn’t bleed much. I just have to be more careful on that side.