With the Abayudaya - Ending and Beginning

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Rabbi Gershom Sizomu reads the last few verses of Torah on Simchat Torah.

Then Gershom's son Igaal reads the first verses of Genesis.

Endings and beginnings. The Jewish world in October celebrated Simchat Torah, when we mark the end of the yearly cycle of Torah reading by chanting the last few verses of the scroll and then beginning anew with the first few verses of Genesis. I joined the Abayudaya community Saturday night and Sunday morning in drumming, dancing and singing our hearts out.

My time at Nabugoye Hill is coming to an end. There are many threads to weave together in the next few days from my volunteer work over the past six months. On Shabbat I’m sponsoring a Kiddush lunch of rice, beans, goat and eggplant (including a token contribution from what survived in my garden). On Sunday, I’m going to Entebbe airport with JJ Keki, who is flying to Amsterdam with me before we separate – JJ to New York to begin his Kulanu-Abayudaya speaking tour (www.kulanu.org), and me back to Canada, first to Montreal, then based in Ottawa, with a week in Vancouver Nov 16-23. I’ll be Ottawa when JJ’s there Nov. 11 and in Vancouver when he speaks Nov. 19. I will be talking about my experiences Nov. 17 at Or Shalom in Vancouver.

And then a new beginning. God willing, I’ll return to Uganda around Dec. 1 to get settled in my new home in Kampala and begin working Dec. 15 as manager of publications and material development for the Uganda office of BRAC, world’s largest antipoverty group (www.brac.net). A great fringe benefit of the job is that with BRAC being Bangladesh-based, the lunch room serves yummy curries.

In Kampala, I’ve rented a brand-new three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment for $383 Canadian a month (Ugandans think that’s very, very expensive). It’s a 10-minute walk from my new office, which is about five kilometres south of downtown Kampala. In the ritzier sections of the city it would easily cost three times as much. There are cattle, chickens and small vegetable farms along the dirt road to my place. Unfurnished here means no fridge or stove so I’ll have some significant costs setting the place up. With no legislated tenant protection, landlords have free rein – six months’ rent in advance plus a month’s security deposit.

The High Holy Days were very high here with almost 300 people, many dressed in white, jamming the Moses Synagogue. Services were a combination of Abayadaya practices developed over the 90 years since their community began, and more familiar Conservative songs and prayers from Rabbi Gershom Sizomu’s training in that movement. I walked late into mincha (afternoon) services on Rosh Hashanah to hear something for the first time – Shirat Hayam, the Song of Moses, composed in Luganda by the founder of the Abayudaya, Semei Kakungulu. The rhythm was steady, almost plodding and the melody simple and repetitive, evoking the songs of Canadian First Nations peoples. For many years, this was the centrepiece of Abayudaya worship and everyone memorized it.

Another first was offering the Birkat Hacohanim (Priestly Blessing) by myself. I’m usually one of a number of descendents of the priestly tribe in the congregation. One Israeli visitor on Rosh Hashanah happened to be a Levi and helped me with the ritual handwashing. I also enjoyed being the Baal Tekiah, blowing the shofar that punctuates the services, and reading Torah on Yom Kippur. Friends and I felt very elevated in our full-length, white kanzu robes. The Yom Kippur fast went quite easily, except for when the sun beating down on the metal roof turned the synagogue into a steambath. We all broke the fast with cups of steaming porridge from a large vat.

After returning to Uganda, I’m planning to visit the Abayudaya one Shabbat a month. There’s no synagogue in Kampala. Almost all the 200 or so Israelis there are secular. There are some non-Israeli Jewish expatriates and a handful of Abayudaya students going to university. I love Shabbat and hope to create some kind of prayer/chant/communal opportunity.

When I come to visit Nabugoye Hill, I’ll be able to check on the orphans’ lunch program at Semei Kakungulu High School, which many of you generously helped launch and are sustaining for a few more months. I am always grateful for more help: Click to donate to my work in Uganda through PayPal or credit card. Back in Canada, I will look at the donations and how they’ve been spent and give you an accounting. I just used $55 of the donated funds for a makeshift shelter of branches, plastic and papyrus mats so the students have some protection in the heavy rains. They can’t really take their plates into classrooms where other students with little or no food are escaping the storms. Kulanu’s nutrition program continues to provide a daily cup of breakfast porridge and a chapatti three days a week for all students. 

I leave here with a sense of some accomplishments and some loose ends. Great news: A $5,000 US grant for cervical cancer screening for the Abayudaya women and their neighbours has been approved with the very real prospect of saving lives. The poultry project is back on track with the chicken coop virtually complete and day-old chicks ordered. Aaron Kintu Moses, headmaster of Hadassah Primary School and my best friend here, took back the project from the contractor, who had only worked two days in six weeks. I'm invited every Shabbat morning to lead my teacher Rabbi Shefa Gold's chant for Nishmat Kol Chai with the English part translated into Luganda. I think it will be part of the service. In Apac district I arranged to record songs of the new Jewish community there. In Namutumba, the synagogue has a sturdy bima table, thanks to your donations. 

The Mbale Spelling Challenge was a success even though MTN, the telecom giant, failed at the last minute to provide major sponsorship. But they did give us T-shirts that the students love. In the end, Mbale Secondary School won with 17 points, Hamdan Girls’ High School (a Muslim boarding school) earned 13 and our team racked up six. Still, our students came home in high spirits. They had enjoyed a special day with lunch at the guest house, transportation in a minivan taxi, the thrill of competition, plus the shirts and Certificates of Participation as rewards. Now, the schools know how to conduct a spelling contest and everyone wants them to continue. MTN is talking about a 15-school competition next year but I don’t know whether that’s more than talk.

The Abayudaya Jewish Cookbook project now has a good body of recipes and photographs from several villages. It has been a wonderful and often tasty experience to work with the women and get a glimpse into their lives. In the coming months, I intend to test the recipes in my own kitchen and turn the research into a book proposal to attract an agent who will interest a publisher. All profits will go to the Abayudaya Women’s Association. Let me know if you’ll also test a recipe or two after I’ve adjusted them from cooking by firewood or charcoal to a regular stove. 

In my last e-newsletter, I was critical of the broken promises I’ve experienced here. Over the High Holy Days I reflected on my own failures to deliver what I said I would, from the websites for Rabbi Gershom and the guest house, to your e-mails I haven’t yet returned.  

I am deeply grateful for your support over these six months. Just knowing that you’re reading my newsletters has helped me feel connected and not so alone in a strange land. I'm excited to see many of you over the next weeks.