rainy season

The rainy season is underway here in Uganda.  We have been having thunderstorms and showers like this one for the past month now.  With the rains comes cooler temperatures, a few more mosquitos than usual, green vegetation, and full swamps.  We have a small garden area that we have prepared.  We planted a few of the common vegetable and also experimented with some seeds we brought from Texas.  When our garden begins producing, we should have watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, potatos, onions, peppers, squash, cucumber, beans, corn, and zucchini.  Many of these vegetable were foreign to our Ugandan friends, but we should have more than enough produce to share some with them.

This area of Uganda has numerous swamps, which are really more like long slow rivers that fill up during the rainy season.  The swamps are great for planting rice and for giving the children a place to swim.  Here is a group of children swimming and practicing their front flips.   It is good that this swamp is shallow, because I have yet to meet a Ugandan that knows how to swim.

The ground is so hard here that folks have to wait until the rains come before they can begin preparing their gardens.  The rains help soften up the soil and allow for plowing with a team of oxen.  Here is a family planting maize seeds in their newly prepared seed bed.  Everything is done by hand with no mechanical help from plows, seeders, combines, etc.  People plant maize, cassava, tomatoes, green peppers, sesame, millet, and sorghum.  Just about everyone plants the same things as their neighbors.