Kabanda

Kabanda is the name of a local man whom I pay to clear land for the garden at HUMBLE school. With some people in Uganda, I wonder how much authentic culture is preserved within them. Some are so eager to prove their foothold on the paper trail of American trends, but not Kabanda. He is a simple man, better suited to an era where shepherds watch their cattle feed on the slopes of ancestral land.

He clears the weeds of the garden with a disillusioned enthusiasm and a methodical use of tools. He grips the tops of the grass with one hand and swipes with a hooked machete. The stumps he pulls with a classic steel hoe. But he is a tool too. Though fed well at the school, it seems he has been to the limits of sustenance whereby the precise conversion rate of food and labor were measured. Through some practical calculation he regulates the pace of his exertion. Every evening he walks off with his bike bearing the same level of weariness as the day prior.

When Kabanda needs a break he leans on his hoe in the field, surveying his progress and beyond. And if I approach him at rest, his nature is unapologetic. He knows greetings in English. Most words are likewise rebutted with a motionless expression conveying only trust.

His requested pay amounts to about $3 daily, but he also has meals and a place to belong. The cooks once passed Kabanda his plates of food through barbed wire above the school fence. Now there is a gate where he can enter and enjoy warm meals in the kitchen.