So begins my stretch in Uganda. In a month and twelve days I will be on a flight to Terminal 5 in London. It’s amazing to think that I have so little time left! I don’t want it to end.
Leaving Gulu was sad, but at least I know I will certainly be back to see Jackie, my Homestay mother, and be able to walk the roads of Gulutown. Jackie was a wonderful person to stay with. She has seen a lot in her life; she grew up in Gulu, studied in Kampala, then in Holland, and has worked in Kenya, Uganda, and spent time in Southern Sudan for her work with War Child Holland and now ALIN. She is also an amazing cook. My last meal was French toast and bacon (awesome, right) and that was par for the course with Jackie. I can’t wait to get back to Gulu and visit her again!
My last night in Gulu was spent packing up my bags for the month ahead of me. A lot of people in my group are headed right back up to Gulu for their ISPs so they just needed a few things for our brief four or five day stay in Kampala. But I had to pack for the next month as I am heading right from Kampala down to Mbarara and Nakivale. It took a lot of shifting around but I was finally able to wedge all of my souvenirs, unneeded clothes, books and gifts into one big duffel and a small backpack. I fit my gear for a month on the road into one school backpack and one travel backpack. I have never, ever, packed so efficiently.
I was picked up by a cab from my house and dropped at “Gulu’s only Far Star hotel,” Elephant Graceland (and no, that is not a typo). We were supposed to leave at 10 a.m. but Africa time kicked in and we didn’t leave until 11:30ish. We all hopped into our choice of two matatus and set out on the supposedly five-hour drive to Kampala. The first leg of the drive went well, we made it over the Nile River with hardly any problems. I say hardly any but we passed a traffic officer less than an hour into our trip that cited us for “driving too close to the other taxi.” Sounds legitimate, right? After a 80,000 Shilling (40 USD) bribe, we made continued on our way.
But a few miles later, the matatu I was in started making seriously unhealthy noises. We pulled over, in prime baboon territory, and checked out the damage. The engine was hardly turning over but after a while we got up and running and pulled over in a small village where we met the other bus. For some reason, the agreed upon best course of action from our directors, was to merge the two buses and leave the hurting one behind. So, in a bus built for fourteen, we packed in eighteen full sized human beings and strapped all of our luggage on the top of the van. This van was “Lucy” from one of my earlier posts. Lucy has an unfortunate history of breaking down at extremely inopportune times, even when supremely under-loaded. But she performed admirable, and her driver, “Tycoon the Man” got us safely to Kampala.
After stints in Kigali and Gulu, Kampala is overwhelming. In any city there is the expected smoke and smog that comes from the cars and factories and such, but Kampala takes it to the next level. You know you have arrived when your every breath tastes slightly of taxi exhaust. You adjust after a while, but it is not a pleasant experience. The pace of life is quicker here as well. The streets are packed with cars and boda-bodas and simply being a pedestrian is no cakewalk. The boda-bodas often use the sidewalks as their own personal taxi stands and/ or shortcuts. You have to be on your toes at all times.
The morning of our first day was spent in class but then we had free time to wander the city. We headed to the most Muzungu part of town, Garden City, with the hopes of finding Internet, banks, and Forex Bureaus. I came to Uganda and Rwanda with all of my US currency in $20 bills. To my dismay, $20 bills get a considerably lower exchange rate than bills of a large denomination. For the past few months I have had to suck it up and take the lower rate because I was unable to find a place to fix my predicament. And then I discovered the wonderland that is Standard Chartered Bank. In Gulu and in Kampala they have performed the simple miracle of allowing me to hand them five twenties converting them nicely into two $50 bills. It makes my life a heck of a lot easier, not to mention cheaper.
With my ISP coming up I decided that I need reliable access to Internet during the next month. If I learned anything from Gulu, it was that power is a fickle mistress and it often goes out and takes the Internet with it. The same rang true in Kampala as nowhere we went had working Internet, or if it did, Internet that allowed quick access to anything. So I bit the bullet and bought a modem from Orange™. It works all over Uganda and it is wireless and really fast. I can use it to Skype no problem, which can’t be said for the other connections I have been using.
Our time in Kampala signals the end of our academic program and our time together as a group. On Tuesday we all head our separate ways to conduct our ISPs. We had our last lecture today, a fiery affair, and head to Jinja tomorrow to check out the source of the Nile.
Before I bid you adieu, I want to tell you about the incredible edible that is sugarcane. On all of the roadsides in Uganda, there are people with huge stalks of sugarcane. You can buy a whole stalk for 600≠ or about 25 cents. They all have machetes to get the peeling process started for you. The sugarcane itself is sold in sections about five to six feet in length. It has s very hard external casing that can be peeled off with a knife, or in some special cases, your teeth. The core of the stalk is white and when you bite in it is incredibly juicy and, of course, sugary. Once you chew the section for a while, you simply spit it out and take another chomp. It a delicious snack, even if it probably does a number on your teeth.
My next post probably won’t come until ISP period when I am situated in Nakivale!
-Muzungu currently in Kampala eagerly awaiting his trip and stay in Western Uganda
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