The joys of starting a garden in this country. It's not your typical throw-on-some-work-sloves-and-buy-some-mulch, à la American. In Uganda, the one and only tool used for gardening/digging/weeding/harvesting/you-name-it, is the hoe (trust me, the puns we are able to spin are endlessly entertaining), known as a fuka in local language. And here, we call it digging, not gardening. My fellow PCV Aaron, who lives on an island in Lake Bunyonyi and teaches at a high school, came over to our place for the weekend and helped me dig up the land. About a month ago we did the first dig to churn up the dirt and kill the grass, which grows at an exponential speed here on the Equator. Despite having already dug up the small plot of land behind my house, naturally it looked like nothing had been done, since things grow so fast here. We basically had to start over.
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| Digging time |
The locals passing by on the street were perplexed why we were a) digging on a Sunday [it's pretty taboo, since it's the Lord's Day) b) planting when it's the dry season and c) digging with weird, colorful things on our hands (work gloves). It's the dry season here now, and certainly not the time to be planting. I decided to still plant my sweet corn, radishes, beans and herbs cuz I'm officially adopting the Honey-Badger-don't-care and do what I want. Also, plants can still grow in dry season, they just need to be watered. But to the folks from around here, it's unheard of and they think I'm crazier than before. After 4 hours of backbreaking work, we dug up my plot of land and planted seeds. To show for it, my hands are covered in some gnarly blisters and I got an awkward but brutal sunburn patch right above my pant line from bending down all day. Hopefully some little seedlings in a few weeks will make it all worth it. If I can't grow veggies in this fertile, equatorial country, then I am royally screwed.
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| World's most awkward sunburn |
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