the villages of the abayudaya

we have been focusing our stay in the abayudaya village of nabugoye, home to rabbi gershom and the largest of the synagogues. there are six different jewish villages in uganda, five located in the hills surrounding mbale, the regional center first created by the king who embraced judaism and created the abayudaya community. today, our guide isaac took us on a tour of two other villages. we went first to puti, a village whose abayudaya have decided to embrace orthodox judaism and wish for eventual aliyah to israel. we toured their synagogue, saw the partially constructed new synagogue, walked through their cotton fields, learned about their economic system and had a fascinating discussion with their religious leaders about their decision to embrace orthodoxy, even as rabbi gershom and the other villages have not. at the nabugoye synagogue, for example, women read from the torah and lead services. this does not happen in puti. we went to nabugoye after our visit to puti for lunch in the guest house and then noticed a whole lot of kippot, drying on the tops of the fence surrounding the synagogue. actually, there were exactly 220 kipot blowing in the wind, and they are rebecca's for use at her bat mitzvah in march. they were washed by the women of the village and were setting out to dry, to be ready for us when we leave uganda. that was, of course, until a brief rainstorm came, we all ran to gather the kippot, and had them dry in our hotel room instead. marc has most all of this day caught on video. in the afternoon, we met with rabbi gershom to talk about his vision for the future development of the community, of the good work by jewish organizations to bring water to the village, help with education, and now, build a medical center. the medical center, funded by b'chol lashon in san francisco, is rebecca's bat mitzvah tzedekah project. we photographed her at the sight of the clinic, which should start construction in the next year. the kids played outside with their new ugandan friends all afternoon while the adults met and talked. my favorite line was when one of the local children ran up to me, i (marc) said, shalom. shayna looked at me, somewhat embarassed, and said, daddy, he's not jewish. apparently, i'd wished a hebrew greeting on a local muslim child.
on the way back to the hotel, isaac drove us to another abayudaya village, this one home to jj, who is gershom's brother, and is an incredible individual. he won election as mayor in this region, a great distinction for a jewish person. he also has 25 children. actually, he adopts orphan kids and is up to 25 now. he just brings them into his family as his own. he also heads up an interfaith coffee cooperative that has won international awards for how it combines muslim, jewish, and christian farmers, working together, in fair trade. we blogged about this earlier and we'll be stocking up on the coffee when we return.
since this was our last night in uganda, we invited gershom and his family to join us, as well as rabbi darren, isaac, and our driver for a festive meal at our hotel in mbale. it was a great evening, with close to 20 people seated in a long long table. conversations started and stopped and moved and progressed among each of us as we brought closure to a fantastic week together. i spent most of my time with rabbis darren and gershom while rebecca got to know daphna, gershom's 12 year old daughter, and marci chatted with tziporah, gershom's wife.
alas, we all said good night and goodbye. the good news is that gershom will be in san francisco in april for the b'chol lashon conference and we've opened up our guest house for him as long as he wishes to stay. we are all also confident that we will be back in uganda, the next time, we hope, with many of you, to share this community, this way of life, and this experience.