"Resources are all around us."

Two weekends ago I traveled to Jinja, a city about two hours from Kampala. Jinja touts itself as the Adventure Capital of East Africa. When I visited two weeks prior, I’d gone whitewater rafting down the Nile and bungee jumping. The rafting was amazing, the bungee jumping a mix of terryifying and insane. Before you jump, they weigh you and measure the bungee cord so that you dip into the Nile as the cord reaches max stretch. This is a good way to scare the shit out of yourself for the bargain basement price of $57.50.

I returned to Jinja with Mike, a friend from Pepperdine, to go rafting again and visit the “Source of the Nile.” If you’re like me, when you hear “source of the Nile,” you picture a bubbling spring in a clearing of trees, sunlight streaming through the parting clouds, and maybe the soft sound of angels singing. It’s nothing like that. Instead, the “source” of the Nile is Lake Victoria, and seeing the source is kind of like watching the tide turn. I am also suspicious about this being the Nile’s source, as there are several major tributaries for the Nile, some of them originating further from its termination than Lake Victoria. Long story short, if you ever go to Jinja, skip the gently rippling waters of the source and head for the whitewater.

***

We spent Saturday riding ATVs along the river and through rural villages of mud, brick, and straw huts. Some of the dwellings had small gardens in front. In front of others, goats or cows tethered to a stake in the ground would wander as far as the ropes around one of their legs would permit. Some huts were surrounded by small fields of maize or other local crops. Everywhere we drove, women were hanging laundry out to dry on clotheslines or busying themselves with various chores, men were chopping wood, and children would run barefoot to the edge of the dusty clay road, yelling “Sabo! Sabo! (“Sir! Sir!) as they smiled and waved.

Our passing on the ATVs seemed to be a primary source of entertainment for the children, who wore dirty, tattered clothes, and came with makeshift toys. An old bicycle tire could double as a hula-hoop or a swing. Threshings from the field rolled up and held together by string might make a perfectly serviceable soccer ball. Sometimes the children chewed on an ear of maize or a piece of sugar cane as we passed.

During one stop, I finished the last sips of a plastic bottle of water, and several children immediately asked me for it. I’m not sure if they wanted the bottle so it could be returned for a deposit, if they valued its functionality, or if the children simply hoped to fashion it into some new form of enjoyment.

Regardless of its purpose, their desire to have the bottle reiterates the extreme poverty in which these children grow up—most of their families, frequently more than six to a small hut no bigger than your bedroom, survive on less than a dollar a day. But when you stop to speak or play with the children, they ask your name, they climb on you, and sing the new song they learned in school. You find that their happiness is not clouded by the things they don’t have, because new shoes or a video game system or fancy sunglasses—except for maybe one little boy—aren’t necessities in the true meaning of the word. For the most part, they have everything they really need.

***

After the ATVs, but before the sun hit the horizon, Mike and I decided to “floatswim” down some of the more modest rapids of the Nile below the camp where we were staying. In the picture, I’m giving the international sign for “I didn’t just drown” as Mike is waving to the imaginary throngs of spectators applauding our daring feat. During my floatswim, I sliced my forearm open on a rock. This isn’t a good thing for all the obvious reasons, but also because the Nile isn’t what I’d call “sanitary.”

Back at our lodging, I tried to clean it as best I could, but I didn’t have any hydrogen peroxide or other cleaning agent.

Later that night at the bar, I struck up a conversation with a Ugandan man who worked with a non-profit organization called SoftPower. SoftPower’s goal is to teach young children basic skills for the 21st Century. Because technology is foreign to most rural communities in Uganda, the program provides children basic computer skills, for example, how to use a mouse, the function of the cursor, and how to browse the internet. SoftPower has follow-up sessions to ensure the children are retaining what they are being taught.

The man, named Kibiina (pronounced “Chi-bee-nuh” or “Cheeby” for short) originally was a fisherman on Lake Victoria, but had come to Jinja to work as a whitewater raft guide. When he realized the river liked holding him underwater for long periods of time, he decided teaching was a better profession for him.

Our conversation led to the river, which prompted me to show him the battle wound on my forearm. He asked if it had been cleaned, and when I told him “not really,” he diagnosed the inch-long gash and decided to track down one of the raft guides to see if he could access the first-aid kit. When he found that he could not, a smile spread across his face, “You know, Shan, resources are all around us.”

Cheeby grabbed me gently by the arm the way Ugandan men do sometimes when they want to make sure you are listening. He looked at me seriously from underneath the brim of his straw hat and spoke with a trace of a lisp.

“A few years ago, my uncle saved up money and bought a car, but after he got it home, it wouldn’t work. All my cousins were upset with him and told him he’d been cheated. But my uncle said ‘No!’” Cheeby raised his index finger, mimicking his uncle’s gesture.

“You see, Shan, the car had no fan belt. But my uncle would not accept that his car would not work. He had to do something. So he got a thin nylon rope. You see, he’d seen a fan belt before, so from his memory, he knew what it looked like and how it was supposed to work.”

Cheeby set his beer down, underscoring the significance of what was to come next.

“He took the rope and weaved it into what? A fan belt. And do you know what, Shan? It worked!” Cheeby stepped back and smiled, as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “So you see, he knew what he needed, but he could not find a fan belt. There are no fan belts where he lived. So he created a fan belt from a rope.”

I couldn’t help but smile at Cheeby’s passion for ingenuity.

“We can do so much if we use what is around us. We may not have what we would like, but we can fix cars and we can teach children all the same.” Cheeby brought his forefinger to his mouth, as if to hush himself in deep thought. Then his eyes fell to my arm. "And we can clean your arm. We’ll use spirits.”

I know that witch doctors are still commonplace here, but I must have looked skeptical and Cheeby noticed. “Come on, let’s go to the bar,” he said.

Never a bad thing, I followed him, still unsure how these mystical “spirits” he spoke of were going to cure my arm.

“What do you take,” he asked me.

“I’ll take a Bell.”

“No, not a Bell. You need something stronger.”

If getting drunk was going to help us channel spirits, then by all means. “What do you take?” I asked Cheeby.

Now he looked at me puzzled. “The spirit is for you.”

“Spirit?”

A smile came over Cheeby’s face as he comprehended my confusion. “Alcohol. For your arm. We are going to clean your arm with alcohol. A spirit.”

Ohhhh. I looked at the barman. “What’s the strongest proof you have?”

The barman grabbed a dusty bottle off the shelf, a clear liquid behind a foreign label. Cheeby was smiling as he prepared a napkin to use as a swab.

“Shan, the spirit is high in alcohol. It should disinfect the wound and you can clean it again tomorrow.” He put his hand on my shoulder as the barman poured a shot into a glass. “The best part is that what you don’t use to clean the wound, you drink.”

“Cheeby, I like your style.”

Cheeby smiled again. “You know, Shan, we get concerned with what we think we need, and lose sight of what we have. Resources are all around us. We just need to see them.”