Cheesy's new year's resolution was to try something different: hibernation. In January, she vanished from the waking world. With every slow breath, she lulled the sun back a little closer. By February she had entered an REM phase. Cheesy slept…
…and dreamed of Africa. She dreamed of a village near Kampala, the capital of Uganda. She dreamed she was her friend Dew, who in real life had visited Uganda during the holidays. In the dream, Dew/Cheesy went to Uganda to visit her European friend Birth. Birth was living with a family in the village. Dew stayed with them for one month.
Dew's experiences nearly shook Cheesy out of hibernation back into the real world. But sometimes we need dreams to crystallize our experiences. So Cheesy dreamed, and Dew lived.
Dew first arrived in Kampala, a chaotic city in which cars drove on whatever side of the street they fancied. Birth was waiting for her there. Together they went to the village where Birth was living. Dew was greeted by flocks of children screaming, "Musunu how are you!" "Musunu" was the Lugandan word for "white person," and "How are you" was the only English phrase the kids knew. They reached out at her, yelling and trying to grab her blue eyes. This greeting would happen to Dew every day for an entire month.
Dew explained she was from Portugal. But to the villagers, anything outside of Africa was America. They showed a tremendous amount of concern for Dew the American. They were always asking about her about her family, always wanting to know that everyone was healthy and happy. Dew was struck by how much the villagers smiled.
The villagers had almost nothing. Each person had one shirt and one skirt. No shoes. They ate one meal per day: boiled water mixed with flavouring. The water was boiled over a bonfire outside. The water had to be carried to the village from a well a fifty-minute walk away. The well was also the only spot villagers could clean themselves. Cleaning consisted of splashing some water over one's body.
A full eighty percent of the population had AIDS. Children would use knives to carve out parasites living under their nails, then hand the knife over for the next child to use. Dew was horrified. She tried to explain that sharing blood this way could spread disease. But the villagers were not afraid of AIDS. To them, it was a part of life, just some thing that most people had, some basic and unchangeable condition. The concept of prevention was not in their minds.
One child had a birthday during Dew's stay. Dew and Birth went to Kampala to buy the child a birthday cake. When they returned to the village and presented the cake, the child panicked. She had never seen a cake. None of the children had ever eaten any kind of sweet. The child trembled and stuttered. When the other children tried the sweets, they simply erupted with excitement. But they never fought over the sweets, never got greedy for more. They just screamed, laughed, and shook.
The villagers lived fully in the present. The future was not on their minds. They worshipped God and family. Dew believed it was faith keeping them alive – flavoured water and shared knives certainly weren't doing it. Maybe more concern for the future would lead to a reduction of AIDS in Uganda. But it might also lead to the disintegration of the family and of the perfect happiness they shared. The future was full of personal ambition, greener grass, and greed.
Not to say the Africans knew no greed. While the villagers lived and shared, like a massive creature more than a group of individuals, others took everything they could get. Such greed might also have been a symptom of living in the present: if one believed that one's community could grow stronger and better in the future, one would try to help. If everyone was dying under 50, one would take the cake and eat it too.
The case in point was Birth's supervisor. He was receiving money from the EU. The money was intended to support Birth during her volunteer stay. Birth never saw the money. She was living off her own savings. The supervisor kept the money for himself. He lived in his own apartment in Kampala. He dressed in pants like a white person. When he came to the village to visit his family, everyone would eat on the floor with their hands while he sat in a chair eating with a fork. Instead of asking him for money, his family treated him with reverence.
By western standards, Uganda was dirt cheap. For Christmas, Birth and Dew made food baskets for each family in the village. The baskets contained basics like rice and sugar. The baskets were worth a small fortune to each family, but they cost Birth and Dew only 5€. One girl had a tumour near her collarbone that had swollen to the size of a cantaloupe. When Dew asked her why she didn't go see a doctor, the girl answered that she didn't have the one euro necessary to take a taxi to the city. Dew gave her the euro, and later the 30€ necessary to have the tumour removed.
Dew's month was fantastic and, well, dream-like. Africa was like a giant canvas full of bright colours splashed randomly about. But eventually the dream faded. The black and white seeped back in, the splotches and streaks reorganized themselves into recognizable shapes. Dew returned to the airport and Cheesy shifted in her bed. They cried and cried. It had been the happiest, most beautiful month of their lives.
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