A Landmark Hallmark

Happy Mothers Day

Living in the undertow of war, the women working in the Adama Bakery in the Oruchinga refugee settlement in Uganda fled their homes to escape certain torture and possible death. Stripped of everything but their dignity, they persist.

Rising before the equatorial sun, they tend to their families and morning chores. Creating a sling from a small blanket, they secure their infants to their backs for the walk to work. With a thin tarpaulin sparing them from the glaring sun, and with  babies on their backs, they hand divide, shape, and bake over 50 kilograms of dough. If they pause, it is to tend to the children. After work, they walk home, baby on board, stopping to fill Gerry cans of water and/or to secure other provisions. Babies are nursed no fewer than ten times per day. Family care and chores last to bedtime. Days are long. Upon completing a full shift, one of the bakers walked to her hovel and delivered her baby. She and the baby were at the bakery six days later.

They wear their country’s traditional garb of head covering, shawl and patterned dresses.  The dresses, mostly handmade and always immaculate, cover them from neck to feet. They have neither running water nor electricity, yet their garments remain pristine. Rain is collected in large barrels. Some water is transferred to a small tub. With a scant ration of soap, determination, and finesse, they hand wash, rinse, and line-dry the garments. They work with alacrity and focus. A baby on their backs and the weight of the world on their shoulders do not impede ready smiles and indomitable spirits.  They have little; they ask for nothing.  They eagerly share anything they have. They do not complain.  Their children learn to be self-sufficient, kind, happy, and respectful.

My mother worked full-time as a teacher. While we were still dreaming, she prepared our breakfast and packed her lunch for work. On the way home after work, she tended to her mother and stopped at the market. She came home and cooked a complete meal for five (more like four and one brat son). After dinner, she typed for hours for my father’s one-man office. Her weekends included care for her mother and her brother challenged by polio since his teens.  I don’t recall her doing anything for herself. At the time, it was neither heroic nor extraordinary; it was all I knew. Somehow, I felt controlled and rebelled with intensity and purpose, challenging her on everything except dessert.

It took seven decades, seven thousand miles, and seven semitropical suns for me to fully appreciate her magnitude and the magnitude of all mothers. It is but one lesson I’ve learned from the remarkable women at the Adama bakery.

Wherever you are…now we both know.