Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Smells of Uganda

Just as quickly, you are greeted by the smells of Uganda. The diesel fumes flooded our vans, raw sewage and trash piles ran down the ditches on either side of neighborhood streets,fish dry in nets to be sold for a daily salary, body odor from the constant crush of people(personal hygiene a constant battle with dirt floors in their homes and dirt roads slinging mud or dust depending on the season; and washing themselves



and their clothes in the polluted waters of Lake Victoria),



and foods cooking on almost every porch or at street vendors everywhere constantly bombarded systems.


Goats and chickens are left to roam at will in order to feed on whatever they could find which also meant they would leave their droppings at will also. The mixture of smells was completely overwhelming.


One smell, however, I didn’t miss from the US was cigarette smoke. The people of Uganda don’t smoke. Whether it is from lack of money to buy them or the desire to use all available space to grow foods to eat rather than grow tobacco, it was a welcome change.


Thanks for stopping by! More to come!!