363 lines
18 KiB
Markdown
363 lines
18 KiB
Markdown
---
|
||
layout: post
|
||
title: "Uganda: eighteen days in Africa"
|
||
subtitle: "Travel journal "
|
||
date: 2022-09-10 00:00:00
|
||
permalink: uganda-trip/
|
||
categories: travel
|
||
author: Mahdi
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
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.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
# 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.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
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!
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
# 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!
|
||
|
||
 
|
||
|
||
<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!
|
||
|
||
  
|
||
|
||
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
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
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.
|
||
|
||
 
|
||
|
||
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
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
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 Mahdi: My name is Mahdi
|
||
|
||
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.
|
||
|
||
 
|
||
|
||
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.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
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!
|
||
|
||
<p> <video src="/img/arts/uganda/parkour.mp4" controls playsinline></video> </p>
|
||
|
||
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
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
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.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
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.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
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. 
|
||
|
||
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!
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
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 Africa did not disappoint at all, 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.
|