Shallow water.

by Martha Navugga (Uganda)

Making a local connection Uganda

With my feet and onwards. It is the best way to discover. Into the dusty road I walked East of Entebbe. My father always said if you take any road in Entebbe you will end up in the same place, at the lake. The people seem tired, not from the humidity and the thick air during this time of year, but from something internal. I am in need of a friend, looking out for eyes willing to talk. It doesn't take long before I am going the same way with an older woman. She is a wife, to a fisherman, a keeper of his profits and a vendor of his catch. Let me take you there, she says. She is right about everything, about how the sun moves slower towards the end of the day. We walk slowly but that is how it should be. The sun calls out, with the intensity of orange or a pale red, the birds above become shadows. It is a home, when I get there it is a home. The ducks have done all they can, they have to return under the protection of nearness. It is a place for builders. They work together and mostly in silence, they do not pay too much attention to me, it is better this way. They build boats and then more boats. They put them together in hard wood, tightly and assuredly water proof. It is the purpose of the journey, to exhaust my legs and my hands. To challenge my mind out of comfort and to see. My eyes are in Nirvana, my feet warm after getting used to the water. It is the way the world ends for today. Upwards planes come home and below the job begins, it is the time to fish, the time to meditate. I have finally found the closest color, it is dark, from the middle to the water, a mirror of darkness and redness. A sunset to remember, my battery too low to capture the simplicity.