Joseph's House

Wednesday Night, Last

"What happens when it rains? " Denise asked.

It was a good question. We were seated in Joseph's car, a sure footed four-door, four-wheel drive little Toyota, while Joseph navigated the narrow, rutted, and pitted road up to his house. The road from the airport had been relatively smooth, but in the last few seconds, we had turned off the well-tarmacked main roads and onto a dirt side road. Suddenly, the road had pitched up to a steep angle. At the same time, the pot holes had matured to full-fledged, tire-and-suspension-mangling ruts. We bounced back and forth in the back seat, trying to stay as still as possible as the car wobbled up the hill.

In answer to her question, Joseph and Ron just laughed.

Wednesday Night

We've moved out of Joseph's house. His compound rested on the hillside up above Kasubi tombs, where the Kabaka of Buganda* are buried, northwest of downtown Kampala. Although we were spending most days in the city or at Makerere University, Joseph good-naturedly ferried us to and from campus each morning and afternoon: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. (On Sunday, we relaxed in his compound, reading, eating, and napping.)

It was a modest, single-story house, sparsely furnished, but roomy, with a large front room and eating area, a kitchen, forecourt, porch, three bedrooms, and several other rooms, including two offices. Also nestled in the compounds walls were a driveway, single-car garage, two servants quarters, and a line of yew trees at the fence. But even more impressive, Joseph's compound has an amazing view (small), one that commands the entire valley between Kasubi hill (above Hoima Road) and Makerere hill, where the University sits.

From North to South, we had a clear view out from the eastern side of the hill. At the left-hand side of a broad arc, the hills of Kampala rolled away to Busoga in the north. On the second hill to the northeast, we could see the Baha'i house of worship. Directly East across the valley, we could see the sandstone tower of the University's administration building. To the southeast of that hill lie the upscale compounds of the NGOs and embassies on Kololo hill. And at the feet of Kololo are Nakasero and Kampala city center (small). More to our right, just to the south of the University was the city's largest mosque, whose minaret (small) peaked above another hill near us. At the top of that hill was the Kampala cathedral (small).

If we walked to the top of the hill, we could see west to farms, across a broad swamp, and south west to Lake Victoria. These children (small) are the children of Joseph's neighbor, who is building a new house next door. They dragged us up the hill one afternoon. Cows (small) belonging to another of the neighbors graze on the hillside. They munched contentedly as we passed. At the top of the hill is a Ethiopian coptic church and a bare patch of ground frequented by a young man in Rastafarian garb, with a large dagga leaf stitched onto his jacket. Each night at sunset, he and his friends would gather on the hill to make the regular braying rhythms that constituted some sort of song. He would turn towards the city skyline and chant and bellow as the sun set to his back, casting a grey shadow across the valley, obscuring the Bahai'i temple in the distance and sending us back down the hill, the neighbor's children running ahead of us, yelling for other youngsters to come out of their house and stare and laugh, saying, "Muzungu!Muzungu!;" and all the while, daylight would slip quickly into night.

Epilogue

Nufu House doesn't immediately strike me as poetic. There isn't a grand view here, but there is a wonderful garden, full of flowers and trees. There aren't yew trees bursting with Bulbuls, but there is a weaver-bird nest and a papaya tree. There's no bumpy ride up to the top. Instead we walk up the decaying asphalt road, dodging boda-boda drivers who careen down the slope without regard for speed limits or helmets. We aren't ferried into town by a good friend, but we take 14-passenger taxis. We do have hot and cold running water, and a backup generator for those nights (recently every other night) when the power is cut off. We have internet access in our rooms, and all the tea, coffee, and bananas we can eat. But the Speckled Mousebirds don't serenade us with their songs in the mornings; instead, the neighbor's dogs bray and there's a concert down the hill past the market (which we can hear very clearly at the moment). Certainly we aren't about to complain, but it's hard not to miss the relative isolation of Joseph's compound, the quietness of the nights when the neighborhood's power was cut, and the humor and generosity of our host. Thank for letting us stay with you, Joseph.

Joseph standing with Ron above his house.

(We'll try to get pictures of Joseph and his house, and not just the awesome view. Sorry about that.)

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*Note: I take no responsibility for the contents of other sites you might be linked to from this page. Wikipedia probably has lame/outdated/wrong information, so don't believe everything you read there. It's also really convenient to link you there.