Baby goats on a hilltop in Hoima

Given that I can only upload blogs in the office (i.e. during the week), maybe nice to know that I’m writing this Saturday evening! Managed to get lots of photos in this one, so keep scrolling, it does stop at some point!

I’m not sure if a guy is supposed to be thrilled about this according to traditional or conventional gender stereotypes, but since we live in a period where we try our best to move away from such old-fashioned attitudes towards gender and ‘what is supposed to be’, I happily announce that I am beyond happy to have played with and cuddled multiple baby goats this weekend! Maybe some context is required…

Coney (pronounced kind of like ‘Konnie’) and her dad had invited us a few weeks ago to join them to one of their places in the country side if they were to go there. We said we’d be happy to do so if the opportunity would arise and asked them to please do keep us up to date. And thus it happened that halfway this week Coney said she and her dad would be driving to their home near Hoima in the west of the country. They have two small livestock farms there that they wanted to visit and if we wanted we could join, we’d be leaving on Friday after lunch. We said we’d think about it. I had my meeting and interview with the country director of GOAL Uganda scheduled in the morning, on Thursday and Friday the 5th National CSO Fair Uganda was happening and I’ve got interviews most days next week. Anna was busy with interviews and transcribing as well and we had planned to go to a beach at Lake Victoria in Entebbe on Saturday with some CDRN staff… in short: we faced a dilemma. Keep the weekend calm and go to the beach as promised and paid for? Or use this one-time opportunity to go in the direction of Hoima and see bits of the country and countryside? After deliberation it first of all appeared that the beach trip was going to be cancelled (though I still hope they didn’t do that just because we might potentially not be there…). Anna then decided to stay here and relax over the weekend and some work, whereas I had made up my mind and told Coney I would happily join. And thus on Friday around 14.30 I found myself in a car speeding (north) west of Kampala.

On the way there (once we left the traffic horrors of Kampala behind) I observed many crops growing and the typical ‘way of life’ of having all buildings and market activities along the main road. The landscape gradually became ‘emptier’ and greener, with only here and there larger villages. Scattered along the road you find small houses, often built by people themselves with hand-made bricks (and cow dung and/or ’raw’ clay) and topped with iron roofs. Though you encounter many smiling faces along the road, it is sad to see the poverty that still traps many in a deprived life. Children carrying heavy jerry-cans of water, young boys and girls with dirty, ripped clothes pushing a bike loaded with firewood, women walking barefoot with heavy sacks of charcoal on their head, men trying to collect something valuable from trash they find along the road… There’s nothing you can do about their situation (not directly/immediately at least) except for realizing how grateful I am to be and should be to live a life in better conditions.

Upon arrival it became clear that we were not just going to a village or a home, but actually staying in the (gigantic) house of Coney’s grandparents, two old (both about 80 years old) but very much still alive people living in a house with a view… wow! Built on top of a hill the house has a 360 degrees view over Hoima town and the fertile green hills in the area. You know that feeling you sometimes have when it feels as if you are in the set of a movie? I felt like I was in that scene of the Hobbit, the end of the first movie, when *spoilers* the eagles have just dropped them on that unpractical high rock. They argue a little (instead of enjoying the view), then turn around and see, far away on the horizon beyond green valleys… the Lonely Mountain! There were many hills around, but the sensation was similar and I enjoyed it greatly, particularly when the sun began to drop and turned from gold into orange into red and disappeared behind some of those hills.

Maybe now it’s time to go back to those goats I promised at the start. As said, Coney’s dad / family has two small livestock projects near their home. One of those, we visited three times, is a small goat ‘farm’ where essentially the worker’s task is to multiply goats. There’s two or three people working there, on top of another hill in the middle of nowhere. As I understand it there were about a hundred goats at the start, two years ago, and now there are about a hundred forty something. But last month there were nearly 200 goats, so in essence the breeding isn’t going well, they might illegally sell goats and supervision is needed. Either way, there were many goats there and among them maybe 10 tiny goats and another few that were a bit bigger but still ‘baby goats’. Needless to say, I spend most time playing around with the baby goats, that, I didn’t know this, look remarkably much like puppies sometimes! They make a weird but adorable sound, are soft and don’t object to you holding them. One gave me a kiss on the cheek, it was cute. I didn’t mind going back there three times (even if the reason of going there was to discuss why goats were disappearing or at least not multiplying enough).

Enfin, enough about the goats. We also visited the other farm, located just next to the house, which was a cow breeder thing farm, where they also produce a little bit of milk. Cute calves there and funky to see them hand-milking some of the cows. I’d say about half of the cows had horns, though none as impressive as the Ankole cattle. For dummies: this is a type of cow with horns unlike any you’ve ever seen before. On the way to Hoima we passed a few cows with horns that were well over half a meter long! That’s a horn same size or larger than an elephant tusk! I find this very cool. We also drove through Hoima (nothing too special I think) and stopped at the prison. I’m not sure if this has ever even been possible in the Netherlands, but Coney’s dad went to ask if some prisoners can clear the area around the goat farm so they can expand it. You can just drive on the prison grounds, knock on the door and negotiate for labour. Fascinating!

In the house we had lovely dinner, breakfast and lunch with hand-made sauces, fresh fruit, juice and African milk tea (80 years old or not, this lady cooks! … “and the juice in the supermarket is full of sugars and other things I don’t like, so I always make my own juice you see”). Damn the pineapples were good (I ‘snacked’ three quarter of a pineapple…) and thus I also got 2 pineapples and some avocados to take with me, because I liked them so much. With the grandfather I talked a bit about Europe, history (and a combination), the Netherlands, Uganda, politics and whatnot, with the grandmother I talked about the family, whether we lived on farm or not and the state of the Dutch birthrate. I showed some pictures while we were making juice and talking about food. In many ways this visit was culturally very interesting!

And that’s where I’ll stop, this post is long enough now…