Covered in Red Dirt

We are currently in Tororo, a town close to the border of Uganda and Kenya.  We will use Tororo as a “home base” where our hotel is for the next few days while we travel to a village called Abur.  We will be having a medical clinic there for the next 2.5 days.  This afternoon we went to visit and were greeted by many members of the community.  As usual, there were many children who gathered to see the “muzungus” and I was struck by the difference between these children and the children of Maundo.  Though these villages are only about an hour apart, the level of poverty seems to be quite different.  Children in Abur wear what we would consider to be rags that are full of holes and barely resemble clothing.   The other noticeable difference was the degree of tooth decay present in these children.  Most of them have brown colored teeth whereas the children in Maundo have perfect pearly white smiles.  I am not sure if this difference is related to chewing on sugarcane or if it has something to do with access to floride. 

On another note, I have been pondering the experience of having many young children chasing after us screaming “muzungu”.  I tried to relate it to my experiences as a child and the best I can think of is when we would hear the ice cream truck and come running.  Being a muzungu is like being the ice cream truck man!