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A Walk to the Bush: Host Side



Visiting with a host in Jue Village, Imvepi


Hello, and warm greetings from Imvepi, where rains have subsided and we are back to 95F temperatures most days. It has been a really rich week of data collection, hence the lengthy post this week. Let me jump right in:


To give a little context, Imvepi refugee settlement was established in 2017. From my best understanding, local hosts (who identify by the tribe/mother tongue of Lugbara) with large landholdings made agreements with the Ugandan Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) to either sell or lease land for hosting refugees. The land where refugees are settled is thus woven into the pre-existing mosaic of host land, and there are many hosts with small-to-medium sized landholdings scattered within and around the periphery of Imvepi's borders. These host communities are often just as, if not more than, economically marginalized as refugees. Though they have more land than refugees, they do not receive any food rations or financial support as do many refugees. Benefits trickle down, however, from the presence of schools and humanitarian programming for refugees which are required to include hosts at a minimum of 30%. Additionally, many hosts earn income from renting agricultural land to refugees.


One of the goals of my research is to compare tree and forest product access and use between refugees and hosts. As such, my participant sample (240 in total) is comprised of 50% refugees and 50% hosts. In the past two weeks we have ramped up our work with host participants. As I noted before, hosts speak Lugbara, so I needed to find a different translator. As it turns out, my motorcycle driver Robilert Ojoble is an excellent translator. He was also previously an agricultural extension agent working in these areas and knows most of the participants. During his previous work Robilert wanted to mediate participant expectations of what he would be able to do for them, so he referred to himself by the name: "No soda no biscuit." So now when he makes phone calls to participants to inform them of our research activities, he helps to jog their memories by introducing himself as "No soda no biscuit Robilert Ojoble," which always makes me laugh.


Critically, Robilert also knows how to find participant homes, which has been one of the most time consuming aspects of working with hosts. He will get very vague instructions like: "Turn right at the large mango tree, then left at the papaya tree." Somehow, after riding around on narrow bushy and rocky roads, he always manages to get us to the right place. Several times neighbors have had to hop on the motorcycle with us to help us find the participant home. It is quite different from the refugee side where participants in the same village are rarely more than a brief walk apart from one another.


Generally speaking, firewood walks with hosts are much shorter in distance than walks with refugees, simply because hosts are living further into the bush with more tree and plant resources nearby. The host walks can still take quite a bit of time, however, because older host women in particular are brimming with knowledge of the medicinal, edible, and fiber purposes of the plants and trees surrounding them. I will write another post comparing this to what I observed with refugees, but I think it largely reflects access over generations to the same pieces of land where these products are routinely obtained and used. It is common during walks with hosts that we stop every 5-10 feet to identify and discuss another plant.


In this post we will follow "Gloria," a woman in her early 40's with a family size of nine. Gloria's home was quite challenging to find. We circled back to the center of her village twice to get instructions. Finally, after inquiring home to home, we found her compound where she and the other women and children in her household were processing freshly harvested cassava. Cassava is one of the staple crops here, along with maize and sorghum. The women explained to me the stages of cassava preparation: peeling the tubers, letting them sit for a period of time to develop mold (which is very important because the mold is what is used for activating local alcohol), cutting or smashing the tubers into pieces, thoroughly drying these in the sun, then taking the cassava to be ground at the local mill into flour which is eaten daily. We waited around for a couple of minutes as she finished smashing a pile of cassava tubers, playing with a pair of black kittens curled up under the mango tree.


Peeling fresh cassava


Chopped and smashed cassava tubers, curing in the sun


Eventually we set off on our firewood collection walk. Robilert gave Gloria his usual instructions: Please let us know any reasons for avoiding potential firewood collection sites, including fear of conflict, low abundancy, inaccessibility, etc., and please point out any medicinal, edible, or fiber plants/products which you regularly collect and use.


Not 20 feet from the home compound, Gloria identified two of the most important indigenous fruit trees used across hosts and refugees: Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) and Desert Date (Balanites aegyptiaca). The harvest period for these fruits is winding down, but both are substantial income generators, and sold by hosts and refugees in the marketplace. They are also used at home to sweeten porridge and tea. Unfortunately, these are also two of the trees most threatened by local charcoal production.


The mighty Tamarindus indica, locally called "iti"


Fruit of Balanites aegyptiaca, known locally as "lugba"


A few more steps down the path, Gloria identified a 2-year old planted Neem tree (Azadirachta indica). Neem leaves are locally boiled as tea for treating malaria. And as we branched away from the home compound, we came upon an African Mahogany tree (Khaya grandifoliola) standing tall and majestic in the middle of agricultural fields. The mahogany bark was visibly cut in several areas, and Gloria explained that the bark can be boiled in water to treat stomach pain. The tree was planted by her husband five years ago, and I was in sheer amazement of it's height.


Robilert and Gloria beneath Khaya grandifoliola


I should note that by this point we were mainly walking through agricultural land, which is rented out to refugees. My observation so far is that intensively renting out land around the homestead can actually compromise host access to firewood, when all nearby bushlands and trees are cleared. Gloria said that this land near her compound was rented out to refugees by her clan leaders, and that she herself does not have control over which areas are converted to cropland. I will save clan dynamics, which are fascinating, for another post.

 

Underneath the Khaya was a large termite hill. Termites (called onya, locally) are a popular edible item collected in the bush by both refugees and hosts through a special fire process which draws termites from their hills late at night or in the early morning. This hill, however, lost it’s queen so termite collection has been abandoned. Instead, a trap was set using a few bricks, a stick, and a rope to catch foxes burrowing in the empty hill.


Fox trap in the termite hill

 

Our next stop was a Grewia mollis tree, identified by Gloria as a source of both a fruit and fiber. The small purple berries are edible, stems used for tying roofing thatch, and the trunk is also used for making hoe handles. Then came Ziziphus abyssinica, whose small maroon fruits are soaked and boiled into porridge. There were a few ziziphus fruits left on the tree and we gnawed on them as we continued walking.


Finally, after about one mile, we came upon an area with a variety of different young Acacia species. Gloria began to cut fresh stems with her machete, though Robilert noticed that she avoided some dry stems and inquired why. Gloria informed us that, when burned, smoke from the particular avoided Acacia species are believed to cause wounds to children. She called this tree by the local name Wasedu, or “Elephant won’t move” in Lugbara, meaning that even if you tie an elephant to the tree, it won’t be uprooted because it is very strong. Gloria also scavenged dry wood from cleared and burned agricultural land.


(Left to right) Gloria harvests wet Acacia stems, dry material from croplands, and avoids Wasedu


We next encountered Meeku (I have yet to find the Latin name), a plant which is frequently combined with Shea nut oil for protection against witchcraft. I will put a bookmark here for a future post on witchcraft, as it is a theme which continues to crop up across both host and refugee participants, with important implications for social dynamics and natural resource access within and between these groups. Amidst firewood collection, we encountered Ximenia americana, known as Ociki in Lugbara, which produces a tart-yet-sweet yellow fruit. Robilert has been looking around for this fruit during all of our walks and luckily we found one single fruit left on the Ociki tree for him to enjoy. Gloria also identified a tree known as Agbirici (Sclerocarya birrea) which produces large, juicy, lemony fruits. Gloria told us that Agbirici bark is also used in fishing, as it is poisonous to fish and causes them to float to the surface of water.



(Left to right) Meeku, Ximenia americana fruits, and fruits of Ziziphus abyssinica


In total, Gloria identified nine edible plants, three medicinal plants, and two fiber plants in just a 2-mile stretch. Returning to the home compound, Gloria's family presented us with a plate of freshly-cut and peeled pieces of raw cassava, which is refreshing and delicious after a hot morning in the bush. Along with fresh tamarind fruits, we can feel quite rejuvenated by "bush snacks," stashing them in our bags and munching at moments when we are hungry. This is not at so different from how participants themselves use these wild plants to fill in the gaps between cooked meals, with particular importance for child nutrition. I will stop here for today and look forward to sharing more in the coming weeks and months.


Robilert with "bush snacks": Tamarind fruits and raw cassava

7 Comments


Guest
Apr 21, 2024

Wow! so much knowledge and respect for the land and nature.

love all that I,learn from these posts.

love and ZB. Janet

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Wycliff Talemwa
Wycliff Talemwa
Apr 21, 2024

informative.

Thank you .. one Paragraph that caught my attention are the land dynamics where by some refugees rent out land from the hosts. Is the host land communally owned or free hold?

Additionally to what extend does land ownership patterns impact refugee-host communities’ relationships? Who is really for over seeing these relationships?

I am here adding you more work for more blogs 😂😂lastly we need a witchcraft edition…..

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Sarah Juster
Sarah Juster
Apr 21, 2024
Replying to

Upcoming, stay tuned!

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Guest
Apr 21, 2024

What detailed and intriguing insights of both the observed and the observer.

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Guest
Apr 20, 2024

I feel as if I have just taken a very detailed walk through the eyes of those living on the land and those of the social scientist observer. Fascinating look at another culture and practice down close.

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Steve Benson
Steve Benson
Apr 20, 2024

As usual, you share a wealth of information in meaningful terms, so my imagination thrives on the facts you observe and tell of. Wondrous photos support the text so well.

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