We traveled with our friends Craig and Elin and their two kids. The drive was so easy, hardly any potholes and the good weather helped. We heard about huge flooding in Uganda so we were a bit worried about the roads, especially since we didn’t know if there would be tarmac or what. But there is tarmac and no water problems either. The only real excitement to the drive was at the infamous border crossing which I like to describe as a Wild West frontier town. Gotta watch your back, cowboy.[photo right: Elin talking with Rabbi Jacob, next is the chairman of the community, then Esther]
It’s also prudent to hire one of these guys who can help facilitate the paperwork, etc. at the border and we found, through a friend, a guy named Moses to escort us. Appropriate I think to have ‘Moses’ helping us ‘cross’ the border to visit a Jewish community for the high holidays.
Uganda reminded us of driving through northern Georgia; green and mountainous. There are some spectacular landscapes near Mbale which is where we were headed. Turns out this region is a major tourist area because it borders the amazing Mount Elgon park and there are several nice hotels. Some beautiful hikes as well…maybe next time.
Mbale is very much like Kisumu except even more raucous, if you can imagine, and our hotel is also surprisingly very nice. Even has a putt-putt golf course on the property! Go figure. After check-in we call our contact in the Jewish community and soon Isaac arrives to show us to the village. It’s a 7 kilometer drive up a mountain on dirt roads. All along the way it looks like any typical rural area in Africa. Small farms, clusters of homes, some shops. We see Muslim women in their traditional dress, guys hauling tons of bananas on their bikes. The thing that makes it all seem really different though is every so often we see a home with a star of David painted or carved on the walls or doors. Isaac tells us there are 700 people in the Jewish community here. Many of them are living among the Muslims and Christians in the area and there are no problems, they all just get along. The rest of the world should take note.
[photo right: the drive up the mountain to the village. left: guys hauling bananas on bikes]
We finally reach the main synagogue area which is on the very top of a mountain with a beautiful view of Mt Elgon. Most of the men are wearing their wonderfully handmade kepahs. We meet the chairman of the community who gives us a little tour. Seems that with the support of some first world organizations they are building a large clinic that will serve both Jews and non-Jews in the community. They say they get scores of visitors every month so they have decided to build a guest house which is almost complete. They have a satellite linked internet café so they are ‘connected’. We visited the primary school. When we stopped to entire one of the classrooms the kids broke out singing Shabbat Shalom for us.
[photo above left: the foundations of the new clinic. above right: the newly built guest house.]
[photo above left: entrance to the primary school. above right: one of the classrooms]
This is a Friday and we are really excited to go to Shabbat services with them. After a bit of a rest at the hotel we return to find the synagogue packed with people. There are only a few candles lighting the room and those are mostly in the front near the torah so it’s pretty dark inside. It all seems so familiar, except for the amazingly beautiful harmonies they sing to some of the prayers.
[photos above left: outside vew of the synagoge. above right: inside ark/altar view]
[photos above left: the internet cafe. above right: Max sporting his new kepah]
Suddenly, right in the middle of the service, this great wind starts to come down from Mt Elgon and flap doors and windows and then the rain starts. Now this is hard to describe, you’d really just have to have been there, but I’ll try. For 45 minutes the rain hammered the metal roof of this synagogue. It was dark inside, doors were slamming, rural Africans were singing in Hebrew, loud pounding rain on the roof; all on the Sabbath before Yom Kippur. Now I am not so religious but I started thinking that Moses himself was about to walk into the room and part the waters!
[video below: children sing Shabbat Shalom]
