theread.me/_posts/2022-09-10-uganda-trip.md

---
layout: post
title: "Uganda: eighteen days in Africa"
subtitle: "Travel journal "
date: 2022-09-10 00:00:00
permalink: uganda-trip/
categories: travel
---

I and a friend of mine from Iran decided to go to Uganda to explore the country,
culturally and ecologically. This is our first trip to Africa so we learned a
lot and had a lot of new experiences! Our idea was to volunteer to have free
accommodation and food as much as possible and also to be able to experience the
local culture of people more closely. We wanted to talk their language, dance
their dance, follow their customs and also see the beautiful land and animals.

![woman walking carrying tools over her
shoulder](/img/arts/uganda/woman-walking.jpg)

# A day in Kampala

We arrive and into the airport and from there we take a Matatu (public taxi)
towards Kompalla and it’s a packed car and every five minutes the driver is
banging on the horn away asking people on the street if they want to join the
car and there is a conductor who is a person constantly hanging by the side of
the car and jumping down to ask people if they want to join.

![inside a matatu](/img/arts/uganda/matatu.jpg)

Once we get to Kampala then the main mode of transport in the city is Boda Boda
which is basically motorcycles, and there is absolutely no rules of the road and
they seem more like suggestions so you may see your Boda boda going on the
opposite lane even when there is a dividing line or concrete between the two
lines they just go to the other side if their own side is blocked by traffic. In
a way boda boda is very efficient timewise and also cost wise, but it is not for
the faint-hearted. It’s very easy to find boda boda as they are everywhere and
as soon as you just walk to the side of the road, motorcyclist will start asking
if you need a boda somewhere.

<p> <video src="/img/arts/uganda/traffic.mp4" controls playsinline></video> </p>

We find our way to a hostel in Kampala called Bushpig (a good backpacker’s
hostel) and from there we take a walk to exchange some money for Ugandan
shillings but on the way we get stopped by police who is sitting beside a kiosk
and they start shouting at us why are you smoking in the public since my friend
was smoking turns out smoking in public is illegal in Uganda and you can be
charged for now in this case as I had anticipated they actually wanted a bribe
and didn’t really want to take us to be charged legally. In this case we end up
paying $100 which is a lot of money specially in Uganda to get away from the
situation boards afterwards after talking to an expat from Canada who was living
in Uganda for nine years he said that you could have got away with 40,000
shillings which is about $10-$15 in this case we were afraid that they might
actually take us to be charged and we didn’t want that to happen. The advice
from the expat was that once you give them a little bit of money then you can
just leave because if they try to stop you and actually take you to court or
something then you can counter them by saying that they took a bribe and in
reality they really just want to a bribe, they do not really want to act on the
law.

We were going to have transport from Kabale to a lodge in a village close to
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Rubuguri village. When we asked our contact
he said $150 per person, however after haggling and clarifying that we want to
do a budget trip, we ended up with the price of $35 per person! This price was
not exactly the same service of a full private-car hire from Kampala to
Rubuguri, instead we would take the private car to Kabale town, a town close to
Rubuguri, and from there we would take a boda boda (Mororcycle taxi) to
Rubuguri. This boda boda leg of the trip was not easy, but we were happy to do
it even if hard.

The lesson is, make sure you clarify you are not going to pay for “luxuries” if
that’s what you want, and haggle until you get a sensible price.

We went to the art craft market in Kampala, which was amazing, and bought some
Ugandan crafts and some Congolese masks. If we had more space we would buy even
more of the masks, they are amazing!

![wooden african masks inside a shop](/img/arts/uganda/masks.jpg)

# Road to Rubuguri

We had already seen Ugandan driving in Kampala, which in a way is similar to
Iranian driving but I would say a bit worse and challenging, but we saw more of
it on the way with trucks coming towards us on the our lane and motorcyclists
going in all directions.

On the road to Rubuguri our car had a small failure and we stopped in a roadside
town to get it sorted by a mechanic. While we were stopped for that, two young
boys who also worked with the mechanic came to me and told me I look like
Mohammad Salah the football player because I have a beard. 😂

We saw the equator line on the way which was interesting! You can pass through
the equator. They told us compasses have some weird behaviour on either side of
this line but we didn’t see it ourselves.

On the way, specially close to Kampala there were tons of shops and houses just
beside the road with some space between them, and if you stop in those places
chances are you will be brought some fruit or food or something to be sold to
your car window.

We arrived at night at our lodge and went to sleep, the place to sleep was nice.
We met the other volunteers on the next day as well as the lovely staff that
worked there, Kajura and Tabitha. They were both very good to us.

# Dance with Batwa

I expressed a lot of interest in learning the local dances and dancing with the
people, and so our host arranged for some of the Batwa people (a community of
people who used to live in the Bwindi forest but since the conservation programs
were started, they were evicted and marginalised) to come and dance for (and
with) us. This dance was easily one of the most amazing nights of our lives,
such a lovely group of people with such a good energy, and we got that energy as
well and joined them and had a great time!

![person dancing](/img/arts/uganda/batwa-dance-1.jpg)

<p> <video src="/img/arts/uganda/dance-batwa.mp4" controls playsinline></video>
</p>

We would go for walks on the next days and people had different reactions, some
kids would just greet us with a “Hellooooo” and a hand wave 👋🏼 which was nice,
but sometimes they would outright come and ask for money or “sweetie”s. We were
advised by our host not to give them money or anything to avoid encouraging this
behaviour.

Sometimes people would smile at us, at other times they would stare at us with a
hard-to-read expression, but in most cases if you smiled at them, their stare
would turn into a smile.

While at the lodge we started slowly by slowly asking about the local language,
Rukiga, and I ended up compiling some words and phrases and put them in a blog
post: [Rukiga: An African Language](/rukiga-african-language/)

# Gorillas

The lodge we stayed in is originally a lodge that does tourism, specially around
Bwindi Imepenetrable national park with the main activity of gorilla trekking,
where you get to walk with mountain gorillas in a distance as close as 10 meters
(officially), although practically you are sometimes 3 metres away from them!
The trek is relatively expensive since there is a permit required for this trek
which costs about $700 for a one-day activity (compare with a 3-day Safari that
can be done for $570), however it was a unique experience to see the gorillas so
close and watch them, specially the children, play and eat and move around!

![gorilla](/img/arts/uganda/gorilla-1.jpg) ![baby
gorilla](/img/arts/uganda/baby-gorilla.jpg) ![baby gorillas
fighting](/img/arts/uganda/baby-gorillas-fighting.jpg)

One thing that made me think was the children gorillas, two boys, fighting! The
guides told us the baby boys start fighting each other early to start learning
how to fight for when they grow up and need to compete and challenge other
gorillas, and be able to protect their families. It makes me think because of
how relevant it seems to how boys are brought up in our societies, sent to
military service and expected to protect society during war.

# Village

![the village](/img/arts/uganda/village.jpg)

We went to a Batwa village nearby where they were building houses for them, and
we stayed there for 2 nights and helped the construction of the houses for the
three days we were there. We learned from the engineer and workers there about
their methods of building their houses with local material.

![working at construction of house](/img/arts/uganda/working.jpg) ![preparing
sand](/img/arts/uganda/preparing-sand.jpg)

On the first night we went to a nearby tiny town where we were looking for food,
and we found a tiny *restaurant* which had only one food they could serve us, we
didn’t even ask what it was and after sitting in the dark, smoke-filled corner
of the room, with a drunk man talking to us in a language we did not understand,
we got goat intestines and matooke (green bananas). Can’t say the intestines
tasted good but the experience was pretty cool and interesting.

The first called  morning we were given the local porridge called Buhunga, which
is made it maize flour, mixed with hot water and some sugar. In Iran we have a
similar food called Fereni which is made of rice starch, hot water or milk and
sugar, so the food tasted familiar and satisfying.

The main problem for us was that we were sleeping on the ground with no net, and
so we got bitten mercilessly by mosquitos and bed bugs and everything in
between!

An interesting experiment of this section was my friend building a water
collection point using a simple plastic bag and water bottle to collect
rainwater, and it worked very well!

# Some weird events

Once we went back to the lodge, one of girl the volunteers staying at the lodge
who had been at the lodge longer than anyone else (about one and a half months)
told us that she was not being treated well and that the host was growing mean,
and at times threatening to her, specially after she had mentioned she wants to
leave and do her internship/volunteering elsewhere. We had plans to leave the
next day but she wanted to leave on that day, the trouble was she had bought a
motorcycle in Uganda in the hopes of using it but given the state of the roads
she ended up not using it at all, and now she wanted to sell it!

So we arranged for a car to take us and our luggage, and a motorcycle driver so
that we can take all we had to a nearby town, Kabale. Once there, we asked the
driver to stay the night with us and help us sell the motorcycle in this town.
The same evening and the next day we were trying to sell the motorcycle by
riding it to places, asking people and haggling our way, but in the end we ended
up selling it for half its price. Unfortunately she had bought a new motorcycle,
from a brand that was not the people’s favourite, and most people were not
interested in it. It also seemed like they had sold it to her at a much higher
price than it really was worth! So she ended up losing about $700 because of
that… The lesson was, buy second-hand, buy cheap and buy the favourite!

I and my friend wanted to go to Lake Bunyonyi from Kabale but our new friend
wanted to go back to Kampala, so we asked the driver about it and he said it
would be $300 to go to Kampala from Kabale! This was a crazy price given that I
and my friend had got transport from Kampala to Kabale for much less! She ended
up staying at the hostel and finding a cheaper deal at $200, but the prices are
just crazy. They keep saying it’s because of fuel costs but in reality it
doesn’t cost more than $80, and that’s pessimistic! For us, we used public taxis
(matatu) and boda bodas to get around so we ended up spending a lot less money,
but it’s understand that one may not feel safe as a solo female traveller to
take such means over long distances, not to mention she had a lot more luggage
than us.

# Bunyonyi, the boat hire and work

![Lake Bunyonyi Panorama](/img/arts/uganda/bunyonyi.jpg)

With the troubles behind us, we left to go to lake bunyonyi and stay there for a
week with our host, Tutamuzongoza. We had to take a boat for about 20 minutes to
cross the lake and land on the southern part of the lake at  Kashenyi village.

Our host welcomed us and we had a room there in their house, and we found
ourselves helped a lot by our lovely host family. They provided us with their
amazing local food (and in large quantity!) and a room to stay in.

On our first day, Tutamuzongoza and his brother Tumwijukye briefed us on their
plans to build a library, a playground and guest houses for their community, and
explained how we could help and of course we were excited about it!
Tutamuzongoza also prepared a timetable for us which was great, gave us more
clarity on what we would be doing.

That same night we had some children coming to our house and doing a dance to
Christian songs and no doubt we joined them and had a great time.

<p> <video src="/img/arts/uganda/dance-bunyonyi.mp4" controls
playsinline></video> </p>

Since we had arrived on Saturday, and on Sunday there was church service, we
didn’t work on Sunday but instead I joined Tutamuzongoza to go to church to
experience their religious experience. This Protestant church was much more
interesting than I had anticipated, there was a lot of dancing and singing and
laughter! The preacher would crack jokes in between his preach and people would
chuckle, which I found to be nice. Tutamuzongoza taught me how to introduce
myself with these phrases:

Eizina ryangye ...: My name is ...

Ndaruga Iran: I’m from Iran

Nashemererwa kubanimwe: I’m happy to be here

Webare munonga: Thank you very much

I got a round of claps (a very rhythmic one!) from the people once I introduced
myself as was the custom for them to clap in this rhythm when people spoke and
during transitions.

With the help of Tutamuzongoza and Tumwijukye, I was able to expand my Rukiga
dictionary and finalise a first version of my blog post: [Rukiga: An African
Language](/rukiga-african-language).

Starting on Monday we helped on the site to prepare the land for construction by
digging, slashing and uprooting, we had a great time and it was a good exercise.

![Working on preparing land](/img/arts/uganda/bunyonyi-working-1.jpg)

We also hired a motor boat and went on exploring the lake, first together with
our hosts and then just the two of us. We ended up diving and swimming and
having dinner in one of the islands and just lying down at night under the moon. 

![bunyonyi-boat](/img/arts/uganda/bunyonyi-boat.jpg)

On Tuesday evening, the children of the village invited me to play football with
them so we joined and had an amazing time, playing football with the kids is
always great. Once we were done I saw some of the kids doing some handstand
practice and one of them suddenly did a back handspring!! At this, I knew I had
to give them something from my parkour practice, so we ended up improvising and
finding a bump and doing some parkour vaults and some basic flip practice, and
it was great fun. The children were really talented all of them!

On the last day I asked our hosts if they knew of any books in their language
about their culture, and they introduced us to one of their legendary writes,
Festo Karwemera, so we set on a search to find his books when we were back in
Kabale and we ended up in the writer’s house, and his wife came to us and
allowed us to see the library and buy the books even though the librarian wasn’t
there, it took some persistence! She was lovely and ended up giving us her
signature on the books! I hope to expand my Rukiga understanding through the
books and share them on my blog.

On a last note, I found Tutamuzongoza on BeWelcome, but it was a much better
experience than our host that we found on Workaway.

# Safari

![Savannah Sunrise](/img/arts/uganda/sunrise.jpg)

After Bunyonyi and Kabale we went to Queen Elizabeth National park to do a
safari and our first awe was the sunrise of the savannah.

We started driving through the park and saw a lot of buffalos and antelopes and
birds at first, and at some point we saw some hippos in the river. We stopped at
Kasenyi village, a community inside the park beside the lake and there we got to
see a lot of hippos basking in the beach, and we got to get as close as 5-7m
from there, they are pretty cool animals.

![Hippos chilling on the beach](/img/arts/uganda/hippos-chilling.jpg)
![Buffalos](/img/arts/uganda/buffalos.jpg)

We then drove to the Kazinga channel to do a boat cruise and some some animals
in the water, predominantly hippos, and a lot of them! We also got to see some
elephants and a crocodile and some birds and lizards including a fish eagle.
![Nile Crocodile](/img/arts/uganda/nile-crocodile.jpg)
![Elephant](/img/arts/uganda/savannah-elephant.jpg)
![Warthogs](/img/arts/uganda/warthog.jpg)
![Monkeys](/img/arts/uganda/monkey.jpg)

After the boat cruise we went back to the park in search for lionesses, but
instead we found a leopard resting on a tree, it was hard to see the leopard
without a camera or binoculars but it was amazing nevertheless. We unfortunately
didn’t get to find a lioness, apparently they were hard to spot during some
periods. ![Leopard](/img/arts/uganda/leopard.jpg)

The most fun part of this safari was being able to sit on top of the car, on a
very uncomfortable top rack. Me and my friend usually find satisfaction and fun
when things are a bit harder than the usual!

![On top of the car](/img/arts/uganda/on-car.jpg)

At night we went to another small resort to have our dinner, and as we were
sitting beside the campfire, a hippo casually started walking towards us, hippos
were like stray dogs in that park, they were everywhere!

On another note, Queen Elizabeth passed away on the day we were in Queen
Elizabeth National park. Oops.

The next day we took a few matatus back to Kampala, and on the first matatu, at
some stage there were 22 people inside a minivan with 13 seats, it was quite an
authentic experience! Apparently if you take matatus from official taxi parks,
they do not overfill their van and it’s more comfortable but the first one we
got was just one going past us.

# Final Words

This first trip to Uganda was amazing, we had a lot of fun and we
were really happy to have experienced the country together with the local
people, and we learned a lot from them and we got to see some animals for the
first time. This trip only makes me want to visit Africa more, and I’m sure I
will! You can find more pictures of my trip on my [pictures](/art) page.