To Baduda

So this weekend , we set out to visit a host family , the Zaales. They are a very special family, but i'll detour for now and talk about bullfighting .

En route with Sula ( short for Sulaiman I learned today ) we stopped our car because we saw some bullfighting in Bududa. 

Apparently, this is a relatively common activity in the village. Young men bring out their bulls and basically prod them to fight / butt heads . There are no set arenas or frankly and barrier between this ornery bulls and spectators. Now, in classic Muzunga (Muzunga is the word used for foreign person in Uganda) form, we apparently were just as interesting as the bulls. In short , we probably got way top close to the bulls, as demonstrated by our frantic running from two ... Fighting bulls that made their way towards us.

Now, we got Bududa .

Bududa is rural and beautiful. 

We arrived around noon and was greeted by our host family , the Zaales. It's difficult to sum up the Zaales in a few lines of prose. This is a family who struggled for the first part of their lives and basically vested a lot of time in their family and the education of this family . We spent a good amount of time with their daughter , Annette who explained some of this motivation. In short , the Zaales have wanted education for their family. They view it as a means to better themselves . Pa Zaale / David himself was a teacher and all his children are educated. Am Zaale herself finished up to about seventh grade but is a community leader, role model and sharp in her own right . Now, these are amazing people who have started several initiatives in their community . 

Please take some time to check this site out :

http://pdiuganda.org/

Pa and Ma Zaale are warm, loving, Godly people. They treat you as esteemed guests. I felt like I was one of the family. Little comments like Pa Zaale asking me about Georgia and Ma Zaale told me she was concerned about my ability to hike. Their home/compound/farm is in the middle of several mountains . Pa Zaale also harvests cow poo for methane , to power his stove. He does it via this pit kinda of system with an exhaust vent for the methane , that runs to the stove inside = biofuel. 

Photos from around town : 

Hiker, the family dog

Our celebrity , David

Rain

The Longdrop , this is where you poo. There's also a Muzunga altered one where there's a fake toilet bowl on top..leading to a long drop. 

The Hike

No as part of PDI, they are trying to create hiking trails using locals as guides. Given this information, we decided we'd hike one of the nearby mountains . So we had our breakfast and waited for our guides. Two young men from the surrounding village joined us and our hike began. Now as to the the length/intensity of the hike. Mr Zaale described the hike as "needing boots" and "not for him." He said, maybe 2 hours. Our guides didn't really give us a time or destination but whether we near the top, maybe. So our hiked ended up being about 4.5 hours. The path was narrow to nonexistent at points. I slipped many times, thankfully not off the mountain .  We almost lost our attending ( as in her almost falling off the mountain) at one point. Halfway into our hike , we all ran out of water . On the way back to home base, I almost crumped. Legs killing me, tachpneic , chest tightness, lightheadedness ...I lay straight down on a relatively flat part and prayed I wasn't supposed to die.  Now the kicker was ...maybe 1.5 hours away from being at the base... The clouds started to loom. Now, picture this scenario . Steep downhill climb, unclear paths , dirt plus water = slipping down and ... Probably dying. Or somehow camping in the mountain until the rain dried up . Soooo... We kinda hustled ... And made it. 

Mountain hike, accomplished. 

Baduda , I will miss you .