Wang oo

One of my best experiences in Uganda to date and likely won’t be topped. A few nights ago I got to join a family for wang oo in the evening – my friend Thomas who is interpreting during my interviews was able to come – we had an amazing time.

Throughout my interviews with fathers, many have mentioned wang oo (pronounced wong O): “Part of the problem is we can’t do wang oo in town,” “The old Acholi before the war always did wang oo,” “One of the ways I teach my children is during wang oo.”

So of course I thought I needed to join a family for wang oo. It happened that during one of our informal interviews at a marua shack a father invited us to his home and said he has wang oo every night as a way to keep his wives and children all unified.

(Marua is a local alcohol that is drunk through a long straw from a clay pot, which sits in the middle of a circle of men. Thomas and I showed up at one of these places because I’m interested in fathers and alcohol use, and these places have plenty of each.)

Thomas arranged a time for us to join this father and we agreed to meet him at the village center so he could show us how to get out to his compound (each family has multiple huts and “compound” refers to the clearing and all the huts). It ended up being a market day in the village center (this is when people from town truck out goods to sell along the side of the road in a village for a couple of days) so our host was busy until sunset. By the time we started to drive down the paths to his home it was already dark. Unfortunately, this meant he wasn’t able to show us his gardens or where he hunts, but it made for an entertaining drive.

His compound is on his family’s land about 3 or 4 miles into the bush from the town center and took 30-40 minutes to reach. All but the first few hundred yards of the route to his house consisted of a person-wide walking path. Somehow we still managed to drive most of the way to his compound in vivo’s 4-wheel drive van. I was tracking our route pretty well for the first half of the journey but as we got deeper into the bush we all laughed with each turn as he directed us. On most of the paths the 7-foot grass on each side of the trail reached over the trail and even someone on foot would have had to push it aside. Occasionally, we passed a small garden or a clearing as we made turn after turn following his directions: “Branch this way,” “There is a tree stump in the grass there,” “Stay on this side.” I think we could have found our way out on our own, but only because the van trampled the grass to mark our route.

When we came to a clearing with a hut he told us we have to walk the rest of the way. We were already on his family’s land and the hut belonged to his 90-something-year-old mother. He brought her out and she greeted us with the energy of a child. She told us that she still digs in her own garden, asked where we were from, and told us a bit about how the old Acholi did wang oo.

Wang oo these days is a time for teaching, stories, and family time around a fire. The primary difference she mentioned was that it used to also include dancing. These days – for the families that still have wang oo – it seems to usually consist of addressing any family issues, telling stories, telling riddles, eating dinner, and after the kids go to sleep the adults might discuss other issues. Of course, I’m sure there are individual differences but this is generally what I hear from the fathers I talk with.

From his mother’s hut we walked up a hill with our hands at our faces to push the grass aside. The stars weren’t dimmed by the glow of town lights like the place I stay and the crickets and frogs made it peaceful but certainly not quiet. We passed his brother’s compound as we continued up the hill to his place.

The compound we stopped at had a few huts about 20 yards apart. A second compound for his first wife was about 100 yards away down a path and could be seen from where we stood with the faint glow of town on the horizon past her huts.

The father asked the older boys to start the fire as he went to check that everything was in order for the night: the goats needed to be back and tied up properly, everyone expected to be home should be accounted for, and he needed to see that nobody had any problems to deal with.

He brought out three chairs – for himself, Thomas, and me. The kids brought out papyrus mats for themselves and the women. The older children sat across from us and the younger ones sat with their mothers to our right. One of the women was inside the kitchen hut making dinner.

We told the father we didn’t want it to be any different than normal on our behalf, which is surely impossible but we believed that it was fairly normal. Everything took place in Acholi and occasionally Thomas would tell me what was going on. With the fire casting light on our faces and the huts behind me, the father started casually by asking who had a story. One of the older children began with a story and mostly everyone listened. Sometimes the young children would talk amongst themselves but mostly people stared at the fire, laughing occasionally as he told and sang this story. I audio recorded all the stories and I’m incredibly anxious for Thomas to translate them for me.

I think another one of the children told a story, then the father, and finally one of the mothers. Each of these stories involve common characters (a beast, a hyena, a wise hare, etc..) and all end with a lesson. If the story-teller fails to tell the lesson, the children may even ask “what does this teach us?”

They moved on to a brainstorming game with a call-and-response-type of interaction. Finally, they told riddles. Everyone tried to have the newest and most unique riddle to stump the others. The older kids, the mothers, and the father all shared riddles. The others would think for a minute or two and then the answer would be given if no one thought of the answer. I contributed a few riddles and they were amused that I was the one to answer a riddle nested within a story that asked how the characters could boil water with only a wooden bowl that cannot be set over a fire.

After riddles, the wife who had been cooking came out with pitcher of water and a pan for us to rinse our hands. She had been coming in and out all night but now the food was ready. She brought out a serving tray for Thomas, the father, and me with posho, beans, and boiled smoked/dried catfish. We ate the meal traditionally, using the posho (kind of a doughy bread) to scoop up the beans and fish. He insisted I take the largest piece of fish, which included the head and half the spine, not so different than how I eat backpacking but even more delicious. It was seriously the best meal I’ve had in a month. (I mean, it’s hard to beat Nutella, chapatti, and banana, but that is really a whole different category.) As we ate from our own plates, the children and women gathered around larger bowls to eat together. Thomas said sharing from larger bowls like that is more traditional but he has been told in a similar setting that he got his own plate because he wouldn’t get any food if he had to contend with the children. I’m not sure if the father would normally have his own plate.

After dinner and tea, she brought back the pitcher to wash our hands. It felt strange to be served like this, sitting in a chair with his wife kneeling in front of me and pouring water to wash my hands. But at the same time, the respect they showed to us as guests was humbling and it would have been disrespectful to decline the attention.

We talked with the father in half Acholi and half English for a little while longer before saying we needed to head home. We thanked everyone profusely and shook everyone’s hands. (The little kids seemed half interested in me and half scared. The father said my white skin makes me seem like a ghost to them.) We walked back down the hill, through the grass, and back to the van. The father came with us to guide us out and we dropped him off at the town center where he had left his motorcycle.

Thomas and I were thrilled with the experience. Thomas grew up in the south during the war and had never been to wang oo – of course, he already had a better idea of what it was than I did. It was such an honor to be allowed into their family time and just nice to be outside the town on a calm night around the fire.

The image in my mind from this night is a really beautiful family portrait that blended traditional values and practices with rural lifestyle and modern changes. The males all wore jeans or slacks and t-shirts, the females wore dresses or skirts and t-shirts; they told stories with timeless characters and all listened intently with only the occasional interruption from a child speaking or a cell-phone beeping; and they participated in a version of an age-old tradition that was disrupted during the war because they were forced to live in densely populated camps. The fire has always served as light and protection and the value placed on this regular family-time is something I think we all would do well to follow. It was a unique experience for me and something I’ll always remember but it wasn’t exotic or strange – it was not so different from a bonfire while backpacking but with more goats, less English, and different food. I think the only really strange or exotic thing about the night was my presence.