Friday, February 02, 2007

Soft Wood for Widows


Ben spent a week in Soroti training his crew on Childhood Development & Family Counselling and this week we were back in the same venue for Strategic Planning for CPA. The road between Lira and Soroti is horrendous, so I thought, rather than Ben coming back to Lira inbetween I'd go meet him there. We took a spontaneous trip south of Soroti near Mbale to a beautiful place called Sipi Falls and spent a day exploring three of the most beautiful waterfalls and a couple of caves. It's been too long for these two Coloradans since we went hiking and we were happy to put our feet back into our boots. It was good to relax together at the lodge overlooking cliffs, a deep valley and within earshot of one of the falls.

The waterfalls and caves were spectacular but so was everything else we walked past. The trees and flowers were equally stunning up close. This tree, we were told, is only for widows. No one else is allowed to cut it down for firewood. The wood is soft, and so they say it's easier for a woman who has no husband to do it for her to access firewood. It's always encouraging to learn ways that cultures and traditions have built in protection of vulnerable groups.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How beautiful!! The waterfall, the trip together, and the story about the kindness to widows. Love you! Nickie

remaliah said...

hi Holly and Ben! it was lovely to meet you at Christmastime. I hope you're both doing well and enjoying being back in Uganda...it sounds like it, which is good :) I remember driving past Mbale and hearing about the beautiful waterfalls up in the mountains...looking longingly, hoping our friend might stop so we could walk in and see one! I'm glad you could go there...it looks beautiful! remaliah

Quillonpaper said...

Randomly found my way here! A good thing you are doing. And how interesting that about the tree; they surely take care of their own.