Every Picture Tells a Story: The Egg

Coming back from the girl’s house. Credits: GalileoMobile / Philippe Kobel

By Patrícia Figueiró Spinelli

We had met this beautiful girl on Tuesday early morning, during our last week in Uganda. We were trying to find a spot to shoot some interviews for our documentary in Mbale.

The weather had been rainy all the time during the previous weeks in Uganda, in such a way that our documentary producers could not shoot our interviews to the documentary due to the lack of light.

Thus, in our last week, we had to rush and record everything. The best day time to make the video shootings were after the sunrise or before sunset. Since we also had to be at schools during those times, we have decided to leave the hotel very early in the morning and walk around to find “the spot”.

And there she was, sowing the lands with other three farmer colleagues. We talked to them for a few minutes. The beautiful girl told us she was in college, studying Communication, but in order to pay the college fees, she had to work as a farmer, from 5:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Then, in the afternoons, she would attend school.

During the rest of the week, we kept our ritual: woke up early in our quest to find more interview spots and talked to her on the way.

On Friday, the day we were leaving Mbale, and thus Uganda, we decided to say goodbye to our girl friend. We gave her some postcards from space. That’s all we had. She then invited us to go to her place and so we went. We walked a bit in the farm fields until we reached her place. She introduced us to her mother while she went to the henhouse. We did not have much time. At the moment we were leaving, she came back from the henhouse holding some eggs. She distributed one egg each. It was her gift to us.

Eggs and space cards were exchanged.

It was the most beautiful gift someone has ever given to me.

I miss talking to you, darling. You deeply touched my heart.

I hope we keep in touch.