I have to water my plants every other day and yesterday, as I was going to the greenhouse to start the process of weighing and watering all of my plants (something that usually takes 1-2 hours), I had a random Ugandan come up to me and start a conversation. This was by no means unique in itself; I obviously stick out a little over here, and that causes me to draw a little more attention then the regular person walking down the street. Still, the people who usually approach me for no apparent reason are also the ones who usually want to get something from me (that usually being money) so this usually puts me on the immediate defensive.
Approximately half of my total pots in the greenhouse. Picture taken on Wednesday, March 25. Seeds were planted on March 7...plants grow very fast over here!
I decided to entertain this guy, however, and we struck up a conversation. His name was Ronnie, and he was a third-year undergraduate student in the Faculty of Agriculture. He had seen me around quite a bit recently in the building and was curious about my work. We ended up speaking for the entire time I was doing my watering, and he seemed to be a legitimately good guy. Granted, he did ask me once how he could get a scholarship to study in the US, but it was definitely more of an inquisition into the process rather than a plea for money directly from me.
During the 90 minutes we talked, we covered several different topics, progressing from studies to research to comparisons of our native countries. The highlight however, came after we had been working in silence for about 5 minutes (as I was watering, Ronnie spontaneously started to help me by picking out a few of the weeds that had just sprouted out of the soil). Out of nowhere, Ronnie turned to me and said, “Tell me about prom.”
I stopped my watering and turned to see if he was serious, which he definitely was. The concept of “prom” is nonexistent in Uganda, and I knew that meant he had seen something about it on TV or on a movie. I asked him if he had seen American Pie, the stereotypical prom movie that came to mind right away. Luckily, he said he hadn’t, so his stereotype of prom at least wasn’t based on that. As it turned out, he had seen a couple different shows and movies, most of which I had never heard of (the only one that struck a bell was One Tree Hill, which I think it a television series, right?), that were based on prom in the U.S. He had taken what he had seen (most of which were the ridiculously ritzy proms where people spend thousands of dollars on dresses and entertainment for the night) and assumed that was the experience for all American teenagers. Ah, Hollywood, how you distort people’s perceptions of us!
Ronnie and I spent the next 20 minutes or so discussing how America is a very diverse country and how everything that is seen on TV is by no means indicative of the average life of an American. He knew that, but I don’t think he understood the extent of it. Yes, I explained, that there were some proms like he had seen on TV in places like Los Angeles and New York, but in Iowa and many other places around the country, most of them are quite a bit more conservative.
From how I understood it, this would be a pretty tame version of the prom that Ronnie had pictured
We somehow then veered off into talking about general life in the US, and Ronnie asked me where I came from. I explained how I was from the central part of the country (the only landmark many Ugandans know that is off the coasts is Chicago) and grew up on a farm. Ronnie was surprised by that; he thought that all of the US was filled with cities or developments. It really hit him when I explained that the United States was over 100 times larger than Uganda in terms of land mass (just a guess, after checking I found out we’re actually only 40 times bigger), yet only have ten times as many people. He had never picture a United States with corn as far as the eye could see, so I explained Iowa to him (romanticizing it a little bit probably, but I’m allowed to be biased).
Although most Ugandans don’t assume everything they see in the movies is real life in the US, there definitely is a lack of understanding of how diverse our country is. People picture it as full of big cities and fancy cars and seem to forget about the rest. I try to explain that there is much more than that, but – beyond the 10 or so Rotary presentations I have given so far – there isn’t too much I will be able to do about it. Oh well, such is the price we pay for being the entertainment hub of the world!
Cheers!
Chris
2 comments:
Are your plants growing fast because of the warmth or the more direct sunshine?
Diversity of the US: it isn't just the people in the less developed part of the world that don't understand our vastness, our lack of population density, our lack of public transportation in most areas, and the diversity. Foreign exchange students, who are usually from Europe or cities in Asia, etc. assume that we will have trains or buses everywhere. They can't imagine that places they've heard about are so far apart.
We just can't imagine something that is so outside of our experience. I couldn't have imagined the quality of the roads and the way people drive in Uganda, for example.
Google threw me a curve.
PROM is the acronym of the PROM society (WWW.promsociety.net) in India. Phosphate-Rich Oganic Manure is a marvelous way to improve soil productivity without synthetic fertilizers. Not to be confuses with Terra Preta or biochar.
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