“Elliot, we are ten steps from our house. You can walk a bit farther than that.”
“Noooo… I want you to carry me!”
“Nope, you can walk yourself to the gate. Then I will carry you. Who has the gate pass?”
Pascal raised his hand up in the air, the small white paper trembling in the wind. He quickly brought it down again before the breeze carried it away, along with his chances of leaving the compound with us that afternoon. He shoved the paper in his pocket about as carefully as you can expect from an eight-year-old boy and walked happily down the hill, Patricia and Christian following close behind.
“Isaac, are you ready?” I asked the thirteen-year-old boy next to me. He smiled and nodded, shouldering the small backpack we brought along to buy vegetables.
And we were off.
Patricia was in a good mood and ran ahead of all of us, reaching the gate first. She tried to go through to the road by herself, but fortunately the guards stopped her in time.
“Who are you taking today?” one of the guards asked. This was our normal Friday routine, and they were used to seeing us move out with two extra children every week. I pointed to the two boys with us, and signed their names in the book for Noah’s Ark children while Pascal surrendered the gate pass.
“Have a good walk!” one of the guards said as we passed out of the small gate and onto the road.
“Mommy, carry me!” This time I succumbed. His legs are short, after all, and carrying him is easier than dragging him to the side of the dusty road every time I hear a boda coming. We walked together in a group, asking the boys what they had learned in assembly that day and what their favorite part of school was. (Elliot also shared his favorite part of school, which let us know that he had once again escaped from daycare to join one of the nursery school classes close by. The teachers told us recently that we should start paying school fees for him because he spends more time in class than at daycare.)
This week, the road was medium-dusty. Not bad. In the dry season, when we can go weeks without a drop of rain, the dust becomes thick and powdery. When I stomp on it and see the deep footprint left behind, it makes me wonder if that’s how it is to walk on Mars. In the rainy season, the road becomes harder, and sometimes slippery on the hill. The back wheels of bodas glide out of line to the right and left like figure skaters. If it has rained that afternoon, the mud can be thick enough cake the bottoms of our shoes within minutes. We heavily—and slowly—trudge a mile in each direction before leaving our shoes outside to dry in the sun before attempting to clean them.
As we passed the small stream that flows under the road, Patricia paused to lean over and look for fish in the muddy water. It reminded me of the very first time I made this Friday evening trek. It was one of the last times that Reny, another missionary, took children for rolex before she went back to the Netherlands. She was the one who started this tradition, and Christian took over when she left. That first time I went, Christian picked up one of the children and pretended to throw him in the stream, snatching him back from the edge just in time as the boy squealed in mock terror. “Every single time,” Reny said, rolling her eyes. “He does this every single week and the children are still amused by it.”
When Patricia realized she wouldn’t be able to see any fish in the brown water, she gave us permission to keep walking. Christian picked her up at the bottom of the hill and our pace increased considerably. Isaac and Pascal walked happily and quietly, squeezing to the side of the road when bodas passed and waving to school friends they saw on the way.
“Isaac, I remember when you were young and we would take you for rolex,” I said. “It was so much fun to take you out of the gate because you were excited by everything! ‘Look—a mountain!’ you would say of an anthill, pointing to things left and right and amazed by everything big and small.” Isaac smiled, and once in a while pointed out something that caught my attention, more for my amusement than out of his own interest, I think.
When we reached the pigs, we put Patricia and Elliot down. It would not be Friday evening if we didn’t stop to greet the pigs. Elliot, who used to seize up in fright when we approached the animals, ran to the ramshackle pen and began throwing leaves and sticks inside, telling them it was time for supper and that they were surely hungry. They seemed to like the attention, though not the food, and after a few minutes we said goodbye (out loud, of course, and in pig language) and continued on our way.
“Keep an eye out for a bunch of bananas and a ready avocado, boys,” I said to Isaac and Pascal. “We can see where they are and buy them on the way back.” Between Noah’s Ark and the roadside where we were heading, there are half a dozen small stalls where we can buy fruits and vegetables. They span the length of more than a quarter mile and they don’t always have the same things, so we have to keep our eyes open and plan on the way. The boys started looking, and Christian and Patricia started skipping. (She recently taught him how to skip and after a few hilariously unsuccessful tries, he has, to my great disappointment, become quite good at it. It is very cute.)
Finally, after a mile of walking with two young kids and two hungry boys, we reached the rolex side. (We are, to my knowledge, the only ones who call it that. It is a term accidentally coined by the children combining “roadside” and “rolex”, but it is now a normal part of our vocabulary.)
I heard Christian counting under his breath to see how many rolex we needed to order. In the past, it was simple. Everyone ate one rolex. That was always enough, especially if you add some avocado like I do. As food prices have increased over the years, the price of chapatis has not. Most people know that no one will buy a chapati for more than 500 Ugandan shillings, so they don’t dare increase their prices for fear of making no sales. The way to compensate for that? The chapatis are growing ever smaller. Same price, less food. These days, I can easily put away two rolex, and Patricia can eat a whole one by herself.
I should probably explain what a rolex is, shouldn’t I? No, we don’t go and buy new watches every week. Just like “rolex side” is a sort of compound term reducing more ideas into two words, “rolex” began as two words: rolled eggs. It is a chapati (like a thick, greasy tortilla and found all over Uganda) with a thin, omelet-style egg on top, rolled up to make a wrap. Rolled eggs. Rolex. Delicious. (They must be, if we eat them every week, right?)
After making the order at the rolex stand by the road, the boys and I had a competition. Isaac counted bodas driving toward Mukono. Pascal counted bodas driving toward Kayunga. I counted taxis going in both directions. I lost. Elliot sat at the side of the road and said “Wow!” at every shiny thing with wheels that passed by. Patricia found a friend who looked to be about a year old and half played, half terrorized her in an attempt to be friendly. And that is how we passed the 20 minutes or so until our food was ready and packed.
We used to eat the rolex there at the roadside, sitting on a bench and watching the sky grow steadily darker. But when Patricia was old enough to start eating, we realized feeding small bits of egg to a baby and watching her drop every piece and make a mess was an activity better done at home. The habit stuck, so now we always get our packed rolex, buy the produce we need for the week, and go home before digging in in the light of our own living room.
Pascal was the first to spot an avocado on the way home. I gave him the money and one of the plastic bags from Isaac’s backpack. We always pack our own plastic bags. In theory, we would not need to come home with any more of them than we left with. In reality, sometimes we confuse people by handing them a bag when they know they are the ones supposed to be giving it to us, and they pack their own bag inside of ours and the whole purpose is defeated. We shall keep trying. Maybe one day it will catch on.
A few minutes later, with fruit in bags, the youngest children on shoulders and backs, and rumbling stomachs, we walked home. Some evenings, we manage to leave Noah’s Ark early enough that we journey both ways while it is still light. Some evenings, we meet delays and our walk back is in nearing-total darkness. The benefit of the latter is that we get to see the fireflies in the valley, which always takes me back to summers in Iowa. The best evenings, however, are when we walk back exactly at sunset. The sun dips below the horizon or the low-lying clouds just as we descend the hill, splashing its oranges and pinks and reds all over us as the toads in the valley sing their evening song, very nearly drowning out the rumble and whoosh of cars racing by not so far away. We live on the eastern side of a hill, so these evenings are the only times we get to enjoy a glorious Ugandan sunset.
Our energy seemed to fade away with the light. Our pace slowed, our conversation ceased, and we followed the road through the valley in silence. (All the better to hear the toads.) The guards welcomed us home at the gate and we signed the boys in. On the way up the last hill, which always seems like the biggest, we stopped at the canteen to buy sodas.
Almost there.
We turned the last corner to our house and were met with darkness. We had forgotten to turn on the outside security light before leaving. We always forget to turn on the light before leaving. Who thinks of that in the bright, early evening?
It was the home stretch, but our night was far from over. There were hands to be washed, rolex to be eaten, children to be bathed, extra beds to be made for our two guests who would spend the night… just a typical Friday night.
PC: Ecosi Paul from the Noah's Ark PR team!
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