Uganda, Part 1

Soo I thought I'd posted this part awhile ago but I guess either my internet or my memory crapped out on me. Either way, here it is.

Hello everyone! I know it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged but I was having some issues with my dongle (the little magic stick I plug into the USB port on my computer that somehow brings all the wonders of the internet to my little tiny African village) and its hard to blog without internet. How is everyone? Is the weather getting cooler or are you having Indian summer over there? I miss summer in California! I truly (and completely unbiased-ly) think that summer is at its absolute best in northern California. The hot days that just beg to be spent in an inner tube on the river. The warm nights that invite laid-back social gatherings that always seem to conclude with small-scale mischief. The fresh fruit everywhere, especially the scent of warm strawberries as you drive past fields and fields of the freshest, sweetest berries imaginable (I’ve been in serious strawberry withdrawal, if you can’t tell). The camping trips and barbeques. The smoothies and jello shots. The flip-flop tan lines and the smell of chlorine…

But enough, you don’t want to hear about what I miss; you want to hear about what I’ve been doing here. So since I’m teaching at a public school, our schedule follows pretty much a standard American school calendar (ie long breaks in the summer and winter), but the schedule was a bit different this year because Tanzania conducted a census. Why would a national census affect the school calendar you ask? Well that’s simple really - because the teachers are the ones that had to conduct it. Which makes sense if you think about it – teachers are government employees and are already stationed all around the country. And they have the skills to be able to count people, compile data, crunch numbers, fill out long government forms, etc. So my school closed for two weeks at the end of June for like a token break when we should have had our regularly scheduled break, then we opened up again for less than a month (which was kind of a joke), before closing for five more weeks for the national census (at which point, while all my fellow teachers were busy census-ing, I went gallivanting around the country). Needless to say, I kept pretty busy during both breaks. During the first break, I traveled up to Uganda with some friends (don’t worry, this was before the ebola outbreak) to the source of the Nile River. But let’s start at the beginning of that story….

So one fine weekend in June, I set out from my site to Katesh, the tiny town (more of a gas stop along the main highway, really) that’s closest to me for a weekend of debauchery. A class of health and environment volunteers was about to COS (close of service, or peace corps speak for being done with their two-year service and going back to the US) and there was a big going-away party for them called Goat Roast. Why was this going-away party called Goat Roast? Well, because we roasted a goat (we’re a cryptic bunch- I know). Goat meat is pretty common here. Goats are tough, hardy animals that will eat just about anything, making them easier to raise than cows. And, goats are also a lot smaller, so slaughtering one doesn’t lead to as much meat, an important consideration in a place where refrigeration is a rarity. So for this going away party, we decided to buy an entire goat (she was a cute little brown and white speckled thing that we named Dinner), dig a shallow pit in which to place charcoal, construct a makeshift spit, and have ourselves a little barbeque, Tanzanian-style. The goat spent the better part of the day roasting, and sending out some of the most delicious aromas, while we spent the better part of the day chilling, drinking, playing corn hole and Frisbee, and enjoying the company of other volunteers while they were still around. Needless to say, a good time was had by all.

The next day, we (myself and two other volunteers) started our long journey to Uganda. We got on a bus and spent about eight hours on a bus to get to Mwanza, a city on the southern shore of Lake Victoria. Long bus rides are such an integral part of travel in this country that eight hours doesn’t even seem like that long to me anymore. And with certain things like good friends as seat-mates, (instead of wailing infants, boxes of pooping chickens, grandmas that pee on the bus floor, sleezy guys that hit on you for hours on end, sacks of fish past their prime, drunk guys who puke into the wind…yes, all of which have happened), avocado sandwiches on leftover bread (aka bus picnic food), paved roads (well except for a relatively short piece that turned out to be a “short-cut”), decent scenery (complete with cotton –who would’ve thought cotton grows in eastern Africa?) and nice kondos who actually do their job, well then the long bus rides really aren’t that bad. So we got to Mwanza about 6pm or so, and had just enough time to buy tickets, grab some dinner, and enjoy the sunset view of the lake a bit before the next leg of our journey, which was the ferry across Lake Victoria.

For those geography buffs out there, you’ll know that Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa and the second largest fresh-water lake in the world (second to an only slightly bigger lake in Russia with a much more difficult to pronounce name). That’s cool for bragging rights and all, but when it comes to travel plans that necessitate crossing this giant lake, well, suddenly I wouldn’t have minded if it wasn’t quite as grand. We boarded the ferry at 6pm and arrived in Bukoba a town still on the Tanzanian shoreline of the lake) at about 8am the next day. For those of you who are proud products of the American public education system, that’s 14 hours. And we didn’t even cross the lake, so much as cut the corner (though admittedly a fairly sizable corner). The ferry actually wasn’t that bad – the boat was big enough that you didn’t feel the motion very much, and it wasn’t as jam-packed as most forms of transport in this country. We had arrived too late to get any of the higher class tickets, which consist of little rooms with bunk beds so people can sleep properly, but we had ‘second class-sitting’ seats, which basically just consisted of a room full of benches, but we were able to spread out and get some shut eye. Upon arriving in Bukoba, we’d originally planned to chill out for a bit and possibly get some real sleep, but we decided to power through instead. So we got on a dala (mini-vans that serve as public transport here) and headed to the border town, Mutukula, where we got visas, changed money, had some breakfast, and officially crossed into Uganda.

So what was Uganda like? Well I know a lot of times when travelling you can barely tell the difference between different countries, especially in border areas. This was not the case at all. Uganda’s certainly had its share of difficulties recently (war, corruption, high HIV rate, etc) but by what I saw, it seems to be doing alright (it's gotten a lot of international aid- who would've thought that'd be effective?). The population is generally better educated than in Tanzania, and English is widespread. Like really widespread – I’d forgotten how easy figuring out travel plans and making arrangements was in English. Another huge difference is the transport systems – mainly that there are guidelines governing it. In the matutas (the Ugandan version of dalas), there are actually limits on how many people can be in a car (which coincides with how many seats are in the car) and these limits are followed. This may seem logical, but in Tanzania this is far from true- I don’t think I’ve ever been in a dala where everyone had their own seat for the entire journey. People stand in the aisles, sit on buckets or other improvised seats, fit five people in a row that is meant for four, and so many other improvisations meant to cram as many people into one vehicle as possible (personal record – in a dala with 12 ‘seats’ as we would think of them in the America, we managed to fit 26 people). So not only does everyone get a seat in Ugandan vehicles, but it’s a plush comfy seat, as opposed to the metal frame always seemingly a day or two from collapse with a layer of ‘cush’ that ranges from absolutely none to almost not completely inadequate. So Uganda definitely has one up on Tanzania when it comes to transport. What else? Oh the food – the food is pretty good- more variety than in Tanzania, but with still some common ground that made it feel comfortingly familiar. And Ugandans have mastered something important that puzzles every Tanzanian I have posed the idea too – the concept of putting certain types of food in or on top of other types of food. You want some of the juice from the beans poured over your rice? Ridiculous. You want to wrap your eggs inside of your chapati (traditional breakfast food that’s kinda like Indian naan)? Preposterous. You want a shaker with holes that aren’t plugged so that you can sprinkle salt on top of your chipsi (French fries), instead of a pile of salt on the side so you can dip them into it? You must be mistaken. I’m not sure why this concept is so crazy to Tanzanians, but it is. Anyways, I digress.

So we crossed the border into Uganda and then got in a really nice car going to Kampala, the capital. I forget how long that leg of the trip was, but it was realllllly hot, so it seemed like forever. When we finally got to Kampala, it had just started pouring. Like pouring down in sheets. We were so hot by that point, we didn’t really mind that much. But we did have all our stuff, and no idea where we were or where we were going (our plan had just been to walk around the city till we found a cheap guesthouse). This plan actually still worked out pretty well – we found a decent place quickly enough, got a hot shower and a good meal, and by then it had stopped raining so we decided to go out and explore. Kampala is a pretty busy city – lots of traffic, lots of shopping, lots of people. We walked around for awhile to get a feel for the place, which I guess I’d judge as likable enough but without anything that makes is particularly awesome (though I guess that’s kinda how most really big African cities are in my opinion / experience). Or maybe I just wasn't there long enough (I was only there about two days). It did have some big shopping malls that are a nice breath of Western air after life in the vill. Anyways, so the three of us who had travelled over land, met up with the rest of our group – all nine of them who had flown into Kampala (those with bigger bank accounts than senses of adventure) before heading to Jinja, a city a few hours from Kampala situated on the source of the Nile River. Yes, that’s right folks – the Nile. As in the longest river in the world, with its origins down in the depths of Lake Victoria, its beginning in good ole Jinja, Uganda, and its end waaaaay up in Egypt, before finally meeting up with the Mediterranean.

So by the time we got into the camp where we were staying in Jinja it was about 8pm and all we wanted was a decent meal - which was promptly forthcoming. But because it was already dark, we didn’t realize how amazing the location was of where we were till the next day. So waking up and seeing it the next day was- well, it literally took my breath away. We were on a small cliff literally right on the water, with lush green foliage on either bank embedded in deep red soil, contrasting gorgeously with a perfect baby blue sky, and the deceptively lazy-looking river winding its way past us maybe a couple hundred feet or so below. Oh, and there were monkeys swinging in the trees right by our tent – how cool is that? I’m pretty sure it was the perfect beginning for a day of a white-water rafting on the river. Which was a blast. We hit about eight rapids, ranging from class 1 to class 5 (class 6 is the highest, but you aren’t permitted to do those in rafts-only kayaks, for which you need actual skills). The weather was good (we’d been afraid that it was going to rain, since it poured the night before after we got in), and the water was really nice – perfect temperature for swimming, which we did a lot of in between rapids when we got tired of paddling. My boat did pretty good (well, I guess in reality our guide did pretty good since all we did was whatever he told us to do), in that we never flipped over on a rapid, except for one time when the guide purposely flipped us (I think we were starting to get big heads and he wanted to set us straight). Not that we minded – like I said the water was perfect. When we reached the landing point, the rafting company had an awesome lunch and cold beers waiting for us (rafting works up an appetite), even though we’d had lot of snacks on the river (I probably ate half a pineapple by myself, they were so sweet).

....Sorry, this is turning out to be long, I'll have to give you the rest of the story later.