I’m back from Uganda! I got back to Muguga at about 11:30am after boarding the bus in Kampala at 7pm the evening before. Yes, it was a tiring journey. However, before bed tonight I should tell a little about my adventures in Uganda.
I left last Tuesday, 28 June, from Nairobi by bus at 7am, which meant I had to get up at 5am, woohoo. Thus began my not-so-pleasant experiences with buses in East Africa. We drove along, making it to Kericho before trouble ensued. The area is very hilly and surrounded by tea plantations. As the bus was climbing a hill the engine failed. We were stuck sitting on the side of a huge hill as other vehicles squeezed by and the driver tried to fix the bus. After about 90 minutes of prodding something through an opening in the floor of the bus he was able to start the engine and we were off again… for another 5 minutes. Same thing, yet again, and we managed to make it to a gas station where I think they made some more repairs. I was lucky, though, that I had two British girls to chat with during these waits. I also had my book to finish.
Finally, we made it to the border crossing at Busia as it was getting dark. I made it across to Uganda with no problems, but the crossing is a bit creepy. There is a long stretch of dirt and trash that you have to walk across from the Kenyan exit check to the Ugandan entry check, which is populated only by guys trying to get you to exchange money with them. No thanks—I’m told these guys sometimes rip people off.
As we drove through dark Uganda, the sky was continuously being lit up by lightning. I found out later from the news that eighteen schoolchildren had been killed when their school was struck. Apparently this area is one of the most lightning-prone in the world and when combined with deforestation (or few trees taller than people or buildings) and a lack of lightning rods it is a fatal combination.
We reached Jinja (the source of the Nile) as it grew late and… more bus problems! Apparently the vehicle we were on wasn’t registered to be driving in Uganda. Um. So we had to switch buses. Luckily this didn’t take too terribly long before we were on our way again. That said, we pulled into Kampala at midnight. The bus company I took is supposedly the most trusted and has been around the longest. If this is true, I wonder what sorts of terrible problems the others may have. Luckily, the professor I was going to be working with at Makerere University was there to pick me up and bring me to the guesthouse where I could get some much needed rest.
I was fortified the next morning by a good breakfast. The food was standard for guesthouse breakfasts in this area—eggs, toast, tea, coffee, and fruit (pineapple). In this case, I was extra happy because the coffee was real (not nasty Nescafé!) and the toast was actually toasted (“toast” is often just a slice of bread, and I have seen both “toast” and “toasted toast” listed on a menu). After relishing my crispy bread and Ugandan honey I was picked up by the professor I was working with and brought to the forest faculty. There I was introduced to another professor who suggested that I head up to Masindi and Budongo forest to see the forestry college and the field station there in order to make some connections for Indiana University (one of my missions) and to see another area of the country. After arranging to leave with someone at 2pm, I helped install some IFRI software (another mission of mine) and had a lateish lunch.
Leaving at 2pm turned into leaving at 6pm but luckily there was a nice lady in the office who I could chat with as I waited. The man escorting me (he works for the forestry college) helped me navigate the Kampala matatus and we boarded the appropriate bus in the bus park. The bus park was a little crazy. It was muddy due to rain the night before and swarming with vendors selling absolutely everything, from used books to hard-boiled eggs to cell phone chargers. I still don’t understand how this economy functions, to be honest. It’s a little overwhelming and I usually try to distance myself in scenes like this due to my white skin—“mzungu, buy this!” But really, it’s interesting to think about the sheer number of people who make a living through informal sector work like this and I wonder how it is all organized, or if it is.
The bus ride was wasn’t terribly exciting and I tried not to watch the terrible movie on the TV. This bus ride was the best I had all week though. We got into Masindi around 10pm, grabbed a late dinner, and then took a 30 minute taxi ride to the guesthouse at the forestry college where I was staying. The area is covered in sugar cane (and massive termite mounds) and there is a sugar factory (Kinyara Sugar Works), which the man I was with said was founded by Idi Amin though I'm unsure if that information is accurate. Also, this area is not far from Lake Albert and the border with the Congo. As a result, there is a huge Congolese population that fled from the war.
Thursday morning I was sent with a group of students to see a collaborative forest management project. The students are all Bachelor’s students at Makerere who were finishing a month-long stint at the forestry college as a part of their curriculum. It was nice that I got to tag along with them and see what the rural communities in that area were like. Well, they’re poor. Very poor. Out of all of the places I’ve been so far, this area was perhaps the most similar to the stereotypical images of poverty in Africa: naked kids with distended bellies, mud huts with thatched roofs, heat, women with babies on their backs, dirt, tattered clothes… It was sobering. A very nice girl of twenty years was very enamored by my name and kept saying it so I chatted with her a bit. She had a baby strapped to her back and asked where mine was. She also told me I should take her baby with her to London and was surprised to learn that I am from a family of only three children. The difference in how we must have grown up is astounding.
Everyone in the community we spoke to was very nice though, and showed us some of what they were doing, including border planting around the forest and creating apiaries. The group involved in forest management also organizes forest patrols. It is all a very sticky situation, though, because one may come across a relative in the forest doing something like illegally harvesting wood.
Community members and a few students.
After this trip, we had a late lunch and then I accompanied the guy who’d been watching over me to the local market, which apparently changes location everyday. It was a little overwhelming—crowded, hot, and everyone was staring at me. I was also physically grabbed for the first time by a guy who wanted to sell me something. I brushed him off and walked on calmly though honestly the incident definitely angered me. Then I was sent for a rest before dinner. It was needed—my shower hadn’t worked that morning and I felt especially dirty after applying sunscreen and sweating in the glaring sun all morning. I bucket showered and readied myself for dinner. Actually getting to dinner was a little scary and has made me realize the important of carrying my own flashlight, which I need to buy. Dinner was after dark, at 8pm, and to meet everyone I had to walk along an unlit road by myself. I got a candle (and help lighting it because I can’t make wax matches work) which promptly blew out in the wind so I was left to stumble along with my cell phone lighting the way.
I made it to dinner, though. A word on my experience with Ugandan food now. It is pretty similar to food I’ve had in Kenya in that it contains a staple carb (in Kenya, most commonly ugali) and for vegetarians like me, beans and/or kales and/or cabbage. One variant in the Ugandan cuisine that I liked, however, was matoke. Matoke is banana mush and yes, I like it (those who know me well probably know I do not like bananas at all). However, matoke is made from small, green bananas, which are starchy and don’t really taste like bananas. I like matoke better than ugali, so I ate dinner with relish. Kenyan milky tea still wins though.
On Friday I was taken to see Budongo forest itself and the field station within. We drove into the forest, down a road that is known as the Royal Mile. After a minute, I saw what at first glance looked like a person sitting in the middle of the road. It was a chimpanzee!
Actually, the Jane Goodall Institute does work in this area and primatologists do research at the field station, so the area chimps are pretty used to humans wandering around. I got out of the car with one of the college drivers and we walked along. I was hesitant to take photos—the younger chimps looked on more curiously while the older ones were displaying by banging on trees and I didn’t want to agitate them anymore. Also, looking a chimp is the eye is a threat, so I didn’t think it was wise to put my camera to my face and look right at them. So I put the camera on live view and took a few sneaky shots by my side. The chimps let us wander by and then actually followed us at a distance for the rest of the walk. A childhood dream (that of being Jane Goodall) came semi-true! I saw wild chimps!
The forest itself was very interesting, with many species of birds and loads of butterflies. The forest also contains valuable trees such as mahogany, which can jeopardize efforts to preserve it. We made it to the field station after driving deeper into the forest, where I luckily met two British students doing research there and spoke with the director in order to make some more ties for IU. I rode back in the truck alongside the buckets of food for the students at the college (it was made off site at the dorm near the field station where they were staying).
Being awkward/excited/nervous in the forest.
After lunch I was brought to my last destination in the area—an ecotourism project. The project used to be funded by the Jane Goodall Institute and along with providing forest tours and maintaining a campsite it used to provide forest education programs for local schools. However, in 2009 funding was switched to NFA, Uganda’s forest ministry, and there is no longer an emphasis on conservation—tours are provided for the revenue they bring in and the education programs were halted, though the materials still remain onsite. The man who I spoke with had been working there for something like fifteen years and his sadness at the current lack of educational programs was easy to see; he said they were helpful to children and to the forest as people learned about its value. I hope these programs can be resumed soon too.
Misty Mountainish evening view from my guesthouse.
Saturday came, along with another slow bus ride. I was riding back with the student group to Kampala. Not only did the bus leave an hour late, but something went wrong with the exhaust pipe and we had to stop for a couple of hours while that was fixed. Sigh. However, upon returning to Kampala, my nice guesthouse awaited me. Also, I met up with Bryson (who came to the city for a long weekend) and Meagan (a fellow SPEA student interning in the city) and some of Meagan’s colleagues for dinner which was at an excellent Indian restaurant. I must say, I think Kampala has an edge on Nairobi as far as eating goes. Also, unlike Nairobi, Kampala is situated on a group of hills so while that makes walking around more strenuous it also makes the city look nicer, in my opinion.
On Sunday, after my breakfast of coffee cake (yum!) I met up with the professor I had been communicating with to discuss an internship program and IFRI activities. It was nice to learn more about both. After lunch (this time Kampala cuisine failed me—the veggie burger I had was pretty gross though I’m surprised they even had one) I went back to the guesthouse and hung out with two British girls who were staying there. Then, I was off to meet Meagan and Bryson for a Fourth of July gathering. It was at the place of a friend of Meagan’s and was basically a potluckish thing for a bunch of expats. Thing is, the place was located a bit outside the city, I didn’t have much cash, and had to carry all of my luggage. Therefore, my option was to take a boda boda (a small motorcycle) to my destination.
Boda bodas are a common form of transport around Kampala. I’ve seen them in Kenya, but they are not nearly as common in the places I’ve been to so for me this ride was a first. After negotiating my fare and telling the driver to please go pole pole (slowly) I hopped on the motorbike, my luggage squished between me and the driver. He was careful about going pole pole, but the ride was a little harrowing! These things are zipping all over in between cars, of course almost no one is wearing a helmet, and there I was clinging onto my luggage with one hand and the back rest with another, trying to keep my butt on the seat. However, despite the danger it was actually kind of fun! After getting directions clarified I made it to the celebration where we ate and then saw fireworks go off above the city. Yes, Fourth of July fireworks in Kampala—they were put on by the American Recreation Authority, whatever that is.
After, I had another boda ride, this time to Meagan’s (where I was spending my last night). She works for a company that produces and markets Ugandan-made sandals. In the morning I even got to do some foot modeling, hah. Monday was spent at a resort on Lake Victoria, where us SPEA people read by the lake and then at a Turkish restaurant before Bryson and I departed at 7pm on our bus back to Nairobi.
But did we actually leave at 7pm? That would be too easy! The bus left 30 minutes late, and then after 5 minutes turned back to pick up someone at the station. After another 5 minutes of driving, it got stuck on a hill in the city. The transmission died. The driver had to back the vehicle down the busy hill road onto a side road where people attempted to fix the bus for a good two hours before giving up. Finally we were granted another bus (though this one had nicer seats) and we were off again, something like 3 hours behind schedule. After a fairly sleepless bus ride Bryson and I arrived back in Muguga. Luckily KEFRI is right off the highway the bus was taking into Nairobi, so we just hopped off early rather than go into the city and have to come back again.
On the bus ride I had some time to think about some things. Overall, my experience here has been very positive but there are also certain frustrations. One is the general inability for things to work or get done on time. Sometimes I can deal with that, but when it’s constantly happening it gets tiring. It also compounds my feeling of being a dirty traveler, because a lack of running water and extra long bus rides contribute to the dirty bit. This stuff can be just personal or incidental like when we don't have running water, which isn't truly a big deal. However, when I see that the state of transport in East Africa is really just shoddy as a whole, it makes me start thinking. I don’t really know how public transportation in many American or European cities evolved and I’m sure at some point it wasn’t great. But looking at the situation in Kampala and Nairobi it is pretty clear that adequate, safe public transportation is a problem and perhaps even a hindrance to the development of the region. When things aren’t working systematically, there can be serious negative impacts.
Also, it isn’t easy to see the poverty that many people live in. Unlike me, many of these people had no options for their life. If I grew up near Masindi, I would probably have at least one child by now and would be working in the fields the rest of my life. During my first boda ride in Kampala we sped by a string of three or four little kids spaced apart on the sidewalk. They were sitting there, palms up, begging, with no adult to be seen around. I am sure one of these kids was not much older than two years old.
Also, it isn’t easy to see the poverty that many people live in. Unlike me, many of these people had no options for their life. If I grew up near Masindi, I would probably have at least one child by now and would be working in the fields the rest of my life. During my first boda ride in Kampala we sped by a string of three or four little kids spaced apart on the sidewalk. They were sitting there, palms up, begging, with no adult to be seen around. I am sure one of these kids was not much older than two years old.
My final frustration is being white. No matter what, I stick out and I can’t help it. I am sure it’s probably a good thing to experience being a minority at some point in your life, but at times it feels a little extreme. Sometimes I am literally the only white person around, like when I was in Masindi. And it’s tiring to walk around and see that absolutely everyone is just staring at you, there are whispers of mzungu, parents pointing you out to their children, when really you just want to be invisible so no salesman in the market grabs your arm, just because you’re white and therefore rich (I saw no other arm grabbing). On a more personal level, it is frustrating when people you’ve spent time with refer to you as “mzungu” rather than your name when speaking to each other in Luganda or Swahili, even when you’re sitting right there and of course know what the word means—you hear it at least one hundred times daily. So there’s that. Some days it’s easy to brush it aside as funny (like this afternoon when a group of ten little kids raced up to me and all were delighted to shake my hand), but on others, like when I was grabbed at the market, it’s harder. It can be frustrating for your most recognizable attribute to be something like skin color that has nothing to do with how you are as a person.
Like I said, though, this has been a positive experience so far. Of course, going to developing countries will lead to some frustrations. I defy anyone who would say all is great because it’s not. I don’t think anyone with a heart could go to some of these rural villages and come away happy after seeing such severe poverty. More selfishly, I can’t help but feel least a bit self-conscious after being continuously stared at. But both of these things help with gaining perspective, both personally and more broadly. Also, generally speaking, I liked Uganda and hope one day to return and explore the country more. People were overall very friendly and willing to help and Kampala is a city I enjoyed spending time in and would like to get to know better. Perhaps it’s not all fun and games, but this trip has certainly been a positive experience so far, and I hope I’m learning a lot.
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