On April 1st, I was able to tag along with my roommate, Natalie, to watch some of her students compete at a track and field day outside of Mbale. Natalie is the program coordinator at Lulwanda Children’s Home, which cares for over 100 orphaned and abandoned children. (Check out Natalie’s blog at http://www.natalierolfe.blogspot.com/ and learn more about the Lulwanda Children’s Home at http://www.ugandaorphans.org/about_lulwanda.htm/ .) On this day, Lulwanda’s best track and field competitors were traveling to a nearby school to run, jump, and shotput their way to victory!
After giving me a quick tour of the children’s home, Natalie drove her car up to the on-site primary school. Kids dressed in track uniforms that read “Texas” on the back swarmed around her car and crammed themselves into the backseat, excited for their big day. We turned onto the main road, talking with the boys about who would run the fastest. Natalie turned the car onto a side road, and proceeded to drive along one of the worst roads I had yet seen in Uganda. I think she spent more time driving through the grass fields along the side of the road than on the road itself. We inched carefully past matooke fields and farmers who waved cheerfully at the car full of African children and two mzungu women until we finally arrived at the school grounds.
When you think of a track and field meet in the states, you typically think of a 6 or 8 lane rubber-coated running track, complete with a nicely kept grassy area for field events, and perhaps a set of bleachers. In Africa, you have a big, flat area with the grass worn where the track is located, and a few lanes spray painted onto the ground for the shorter distance sprints. At the start of the day, each of the schools had their competitors line up while the officials addressed the crowd. (They spoke in Luganda, so I had no idea what they said. It didn’t really matter; most of the kids either couldn’t hear them or weren’t paying attention.) All the students then sung the national anthem, and then prepared for the first race, which was the senior boy’s 10k, or 25 laps around the track.
Watching the events was fun, but the best part was watching the onlookers. Check out this video of the girls cheering for their classmates.
Sprinting events were exciting to watch. However, it got a little bit too exciting when the javelin event started. The javelins were landing uncomfortably close to the crowd. Thankfully, Natalie convinced the the askari (guard) in charge of maintaining order that the crowds needed to be moved away from the javelin event. This particular askari kept the kids in order by running around with a switch and threatening to beat the kids with it if they didn’t move.
Long jump was another fun event to observe. I’ve never watched a long jump competition in the states, but I imagine it would be run a little differently than it is here. The kids run and jump into a tilled plot of soil similar to in the states so that you can measure the distance from the point of take-off to where they landed. However, to measure the distance traveled, the “officials” in charge (teachers from various schools) hold a long, crooked stick over the point where the jumper landed, then place a twig with the student’s name on the side of the plot of soil to mark their jump. Very precise.
The most interesting part of the day wasn’t even a track and field event- it was the calling of the termites! At the end of the dry season, after a few rains come and soak the earth, the termites, or “white ants” as they are sometimes called, fly up out of the earth to mate. In Uganda, termites aren’t so much of a nuisance as they are a snack. The kids love to eat them, and so they try to encourage the shy termites to come out by calling to them. Listen to the kids cooing to the bugs in this video:
The kids put pieces of plastic over the termite holes to trap the bugs, then popped them straight into their mouths for a quick and easy snack. Regretfully, I stuck to less adventurous cuisine that day, so I can’t tell you what termites taste like.
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