Three Maids a Milking

The soft ting-ting-ting of fresh cows milk falling quickly into the tin milk pail drew me closer to the cow pen near my rural home in Kapchorwa. Fascinated by Mama Lydia’s swiftness and skill, I decided as I watched her milk our three cows that before leaving I would milk one as well.

A few days later, I got my chance. As Stella tied up Maria (our nice cow), Emily and I stood nearby waiting excitedly. After securing Maria to the closest fence post, Stella told me to enter the pen. Being a rural girl, I happily tried to the scale the fence. I learned quite quickly, however, that there’s a reason people don’t usually wear skirts when working on a farm. After narrowly escaping the experience of tasting a cow pie, I settled down at Maria’s side and listened to Stella’s brief instructions. Then, grinning like a fool, I intimidated her hand movements watching for milk to appear. Nothing… Horrified at my horrible failure, I did the only thing I knew to do…laugh hysterically. Thankfully, my next attempt went much better and it wasn’t long before I was milking a cow like a pro. After a few minutes, I let Emily have a turn. Being a city girl, she was even more excited than I at our newly acquired abilities. There’s just something wonderful about knowing how to get food even when there isn’t a grocery store nearby.

Stella soon took over and milked the rest of our cows. In the end, Emily and I only milked about 2 cups of the gallon (or so) of milk, but we felt proud of our accomplishment none-the-less. It wasn’t until later that afternoon that we learned some very exciting news…Emily and I could now get married! Apparently in Sebei culture, unless a woman knows how to milk a cow she is not allowed to get married. Finally! I had always wondered why I’ve never had any prospects…if only I’d learned how to milk a cow sooner! =)

During my week in Kapchorwa, I learned much more than just how to milk a cow. My family was very agriculturally based, so Emily and I got to spend quite a bit of time working ion the fields. One of my favorite things we did was harvest coffee. Uganda, especially Eastern Uganda, plays a large part in producing the coffee drank by coffee-lovers worldwide. My family had a large plot of land devoted to coffee trees. For many hours of the week, Emily and I found ourselves deep within those trees slowly harvesting the precious beans.

Coffee trees are quite interesting to look at. Fairly short, they produce massive amounts of green coffee bean, which weigh down the branches. When the beans turn a rosy red, then it is time to harvest them. Emily and I would spend hours picking the little red beans, leaving the green ones on to turn red in their own time. By the end of our week, we have packed a fairly large basin full to the brim.

The last full day in Kapchorwa, Stella and Papa Yovan taught us the final step before the beans were ready to sell to mass coffee producers. Our basin full of coffee beans was filled with water and let sit all day. Then, after they had become softened by the water, we used a special pulping machine to remove the seeds from within the bean (there are 2 within every bean). The machine was pretty large and you had to spin the handle around and around for what seemed like hours to pulp all the beans, but it was so much fun. After completing this task, the beans were soaked over night, dried, and then sold. So if you ever happen to be drinking coffee from Mt. Elgon, Uganda…just know that I might have been the one to harvest your deliciously caffeinated beverage.