The Vulnerable Earth
A major issue for the community leaders in our project is care of the natural environment. For myself, who is not an expert in environmental studies, or a farmer, or even much of a gardener, this took me by surprise. I came to the project looking for stories about care of vulnerable people, but I found these stories to also involve care of the earth—and concern for its vulnerability as well. Rising temperatures, irregular rains, and loss of forests are now major problems for Ugandan communities and those who care for them.
As I write this in June 2021, the U.S. is experiencing its own historic heatwave. It is expected to be 97 degrees Fahrenheit in Boston today, and we are many weeks away from the peak of summer. Like most homes in Boston, ours was built about a century ago and never outfitted for central air conditioning, so we are making do with portable and window units, taking relief in the “cold rooms” of the house, and avoiding cooking with the stove. We also live in one of the more forested parts of the city, where temperatures can be up to ten degrees lower than the city’s green-space lacking “heat islands,” like Chinatown and Lower Roxbury.
In other parts of the country the heat is even more uncomfortable. It has been over 100 degrees in Oregon this week, and so far this summer there have been several days with temperatures above 115 in Arizona. Similar unprecedented heat waves have happened this month in Texas, California, and Canada. At this point, the heat is about more than discomfort; it is life-threatening. Heatwave related deaths are steadily increasing around the world and could rise by 50 percent in coming decades.
Yet in Uganda, severe heat is just one of many climate-related threats. Traditionally fertile and lush, the landscape is now much hotter, less forested, and less rich with groundwater. Periods of rain are less predictable, and many agriculturalists are finding that their tried-and-true methods for growing food can no longer be relied on. This has in turn changed how people access nutrition. In the past, people visiting home villages from the city would bring back diverse produce, such as local fruits, cassava, tomatoes, yams, and plantains. Now it is just as common for people to bring food purchased in the city to their relatives in the village, especially during times of drought. City-purchased foods are also more likely to be foreign imports, a dynamic reinforcing Uganda’s dependence on external producers.
Some of the caregivers in our project, like Josephine Kizza, are dedicated to the task of adapting to this situation, providing training in affordable, effective growing methods for family garden plots and small-scale farmers. Yet even those not directly focused on farming and ecology often integrate it into their everyday activities. The three other women featured on this website—Florence, Vivian, and Lukia—all have food-producing gardens on their premises, and they teach those under their care to garden as part of their residential programs. For all three of them, having their own source of food has also allowed them to continue providing care during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
The political conversation about climate change in the U.S. tends to push people into polarized groups: those that feel dismayed, anxious, and ineffective in the face of such big problems; and those that refuse to internalize (or even acknowledge) the problems or live in such a heightened state of concern. In Uganda, this dynamic is nearly absent, as far as I can tell. To deny that the ecology is changing, and that at least some major portion of this change is due to reckless human choices, is to be blind to the obvious. Ugandans can go down the road and see the forests being cut down, by both the locals needing fuel and companies mining wood and sand. They can travel to their home villages and see that the springs where they once fetched water are now dry or fenced off by a private landowner. They can see the heavily used borehole built by some U.S. nonprofit, which breaks down in a few short years. They can taste in their mouths and feel in their hair the dry dust from the unpaved roads, where the earth lacks the greenery and water that used to hold it down.
On the flip side of the obvious, though, is a space of response that is ready, active, and indeed already primed. The Ugandan leaders we interviewed are by and large worried, but not defeatist, about changes to their climate. They are perhaps more accustomed to the externalities of global corporate capitalism directly putting them at risk. Either way, they throw their energies into obvious places: cultivating green spaces, learning new farming and water collection methods, and sharing their knowledge of ecological care.