9 Days in Uganda

FRUIT MARKET OUTSIDE KAMPALA, with avacodos the size of softballs!



The other morning I awoke from a dream that I was at home, nestled in bed with an ex-girlfriend. It was safe, comforting and warm…soothing for the soul. I felt peaceful. The alarm went off and she stared at me quizzically yet still smiling, ‘Well, are you getting up?’. I smiled and opened my eyes, immediately finding the room dark, no sweet smelling girl lying next to me, just light rain pattering the palm fronds outside my window and the distant sounds of ambitious roosters announcing the forthcoming dawn. My brooding thoughts of disappointment were soon muted by the rumble of thunder from faraway, and quickly replaced by a concern for the reality which is at hand. In a couple hours I am supposed to fly the 1900 back across the jungle, over the towering peaks, and the central African scrub, back to N’djamena, that wondrous wonder of wonders.

I struggle to get up, ambition sapped, light a candle (there is no electricity) and saunter outside to the porch where I watch the pink lighting bounce from cloud to cloud in the south, over expansive Lake Victoria. Great, just what I need, I just want to crawl back into bed with my dreamt up friend. Planting myself a mile deep in a black Ugandan electrical storm last Friday has left me shell shocked to the extent that my stomach tightens and I cringe when I look south now and see another threatening menace flashing away in the indigo sky. Not again, not today. I get dressed in the flickering candlelight while sipping a cup of bitter Nescafe instant coffee, and outside my window a bird awakes and begins singing what I swear sounds like ‘youuur sc-a-a-a-a-a-a-red’. Shut up bird, its too early for your imbecilic taunting.

My new first officer, the engineer and I make it to the airplane, taxi it to the fuel stand, and I busy myself fretting the advancing storm. I fuel the aircraft myself, as the designated fueler guy is about 326.9 mph too slow for my anxious, twitching self. The new South African FO and the engineer wander off towards the control tower at an unhurried pace to file the flight plan, check enroute satellite maps and pay the departure taxes. Fifty five minutes later I am covered in Jet A, my face burning, the fueler chuckling, the ominous storm nearly overhead and out slowly strolls my two S.A friends with chocolate bars and cigarettes from the duty free store, simply classic. My temper soon joins my face in experiencing the burning sensation. Come ON, quick, faster, faster…c’mon guys, get your lazy Afrikaans asses in gear, have you looked behind you at that wall of rain??????? We start up, run through the checklists, and line up on the runway waiting impatiently for take off clearance, but there’s a delay, seems the flight plan wasn‘t filed correctly after all. We are now underneath the anvil of the massive morning storm and I can feel the rudder dancing around and the elevator fluttering with the shifting, gusty winds. Then a raindrop, and another hitting the windshield with resounding thuds. To hell with this, I had my excitement with tropical thunderstorms, lying radars and airplanes last week. Another day in Uganda with its beautiful green hills and beautiful smiling people is better than fighting my way through the hostile African skies towards a country whose people don’t even like me.

THE BOATS IN ENTEBBE HARBOR


I am staying here in Entebbe with the African Chief Pilot and the new Director of Operations for AirServ, the GGUDS as I‘ve acronymly nicknamed them. Both gentlemen are older, intelligent, personable and great individuals, but I am ready to pull my hair (if I actually had any right now) out. It takes 4 hours to accomplish a matter that should take 30 minutes, and that’s on a good day. When I arrived last Friday I was asked if I had anything on my agenda to see or do. I answered with a resounding ‘hell yeah!’, followed by the list. Fishing for Nile perch, hiking, rafting the Nile, maybe bungee jumping at the headwaters(!), bookstores, souvenir shopping, botanical gardens, girls…you name it, I’m ready, lets go!

Everyday after started the same. ‘Ok, Jess, have any ideas on what you’d like to do today?’ they'd implore as we all sat on the porch overlooking the lake… “Yes, I’d love to head over to Jinja and raft the Nile, or go to Kampala and explore”…

Then came the NASA space shuttle countdown announcer from somewhere in the skies above, slowly and methodically stating, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1!” Let the ridiculous debating begin! The two gray hairs would then spend an hour discussing and debating how this task would be best accomplished while swishing coffee around in their cups. Car or van? Which do you prefer to drive anyway? Taxi? Weather, did you hear rain last night, hmm, think it'll affect the (PAVED) roads? Best day to do it? Moon phase, favorite colors, and astrological signs? Really, Gemini, huh? Probably should stay off the roads on Thursday then. When debates were complete it was ALWAYS decided that one or both absolutely must to go to the office to make sure no one had sent them emergency emails requiring their immediate response. One hour was always stated, "one hour, that’s all, don’t go anywhere, we‘d be happy to take you, sounds fun!". Five hours later when they both returned home, to find me sitting and steaming outside on the porch, they’d ask me as if completely unaware of the commitment made earlier… ‘Hey Jess, how's the day been? Have any ideas on what you’d like to do with the rest of the day?’ “Nope Guys, not a F#*^%ng clue, thanks for asking though!” Then the debating would resume as to what the best course of action would be for the remainder of the afternoon. The Great Geriatric Ugandan Debating Society, a marvelous thing indeed. After a few days I conceded defeat, learned to recognize the humor in it all, and found traits in both of them I enjoyed.

I helped the Director of Ops barter for a bicycle at the Kampala Bike Market, a colorful collection of completely random, scrappy used bikes which arrive by the container load from Japan and Korea, and sit half sunken in a muddy, red clay yard in the middle of downtown’s chaos. I had an incredibly entertaining and informative time test driving about 134 bikes, being giggled at by a proportionately higher number of Ugandan girls and children, and making a few new friends.

We'd browse slowly, and the sellers would gawk at us both, pushing bicycles into our crotches, implying we should take them for a ride. I’d present the sellers with questions ‘Why should he buy this bike?’
“Its pure aloo min ium” (pronounced as the British say it, adding a mysterious ‘I’ in the mix). ‘They’re all aluminum man! Ha, ha! Just watch.’...looking out into the crowd of bike sellers, singling one out... ‘Hey bud!, hey, why is your bike better than this one?’...and with no delay, the response: “Its pure aloo min ium!”
‘See! Who taught you guys to say that? You need something more interesting as a selling point. Try this: This bike? Aah, my pasty white friend, this is pure aircraft grade aluminum, without the i, and coincidently its recycled from the Concorde. It has a bi-actuated, tri-nebulous, quasi static chain inverter, top of the line, top of the line indeed, a cable controlled friction generating momentum arresting device, and of course this girly little pink bell! What’d’ya say mon???’ They all got a good kick out of it, I’m sure wondering what in the hell I just said. Geek.

On our return thru Kampala hordes of shoeless and hungry looking children would stare blankly, and inoffensively into the car when we slowed in the merciless traffic. “They are refugees from the north” Hussein, one of AirServ’s drivers explains. In northern Uganda, for years now, a group of rabid, violent guerrillas has been torturing and slaughtering the local populations, often in the name of God. No, not Allah, but God. The LRA, Lords Republic Army, led my a deranged Joseph Kony, whose immoral and disgusting tactics have garnered world attention, well, the world outside the USA. Check out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3462901.stm for a brief rundown on them.

I rolled down the window and emptied my pocket change into the dirty hands of the smallest children I could find. When I’m out of change I have only big bills left, the smallest being the equivalent of 10 US dollars. The eyes destroy your protective shell, they cut right through it. 12 innocent, beautiful, brown little eyes staring at me, speaking to me in silence, suddenly awaken a realization of how unfair this world is, and how hypocritical I am. I turn from the pleads, direct my attention back inside and see my backpack, with my $500 camera, my $200 MP3 player, my wallet with $300 worth of Ugandan schillings, my $100 dollar glasses, and what do I do? Ignore them. I gave them something. Yeah, I gave them maybe $3 worth of change, but I have souvenirs I want to get for myself and friends, so I cannot toss more away. How horrible is that? Hussein, a native Ugandan, says “just ignore them”, ignore his own country’s children, and he’s sitting next to a disgustingly wealthy individual (by local comparison) from a disgustingly wealthy nation. How can my thoughts go from pure pity and sympathy to greed and materialism in the flash of a second? We pull away from them and my conscience is allowed some breathing room.

Driving in Uganda is an adventure in itself. The task is 4 dimensional, with other vehicles, motorcycles, animals, pedestrians, road debris, fruit, monkeys, sometimes fruit covered monkeys, and anything else you could possibly imagine, coming at you from every direction possible, even above. At a busy intersection in Kampala two traffic guards stood amidst the honking mass of blue smoke belching vehicles and gave contradictory instructions to the traffic. “What are they doing!?” I asked Hussein. “One of them works for the bus taxi company, the other for the boda bodas (the motorcycle taxis) and so they are trying to help out their respective drivers.” In the end the two men were basically ignored and ultimately anarchy reigns over the highways and byways of Uganda, making everyday an exciting day.

The return drive from the festive bike market was under a full moon, weaving thru the electricity less neighborhoods, dodging the black ghosts who’d run thru the headlight beams ahead. We’d pass a group of 10 or 12 people sitting in a circle outside their shack or business, candlelight illuminating their facial features, and above a few of them I noticed signs reading “Praise the Lord Jesus and be thankful for everyday!” or “Thank Jesus for Life!”. Here are people sleeping on mud floors, constantly battling malaria and other diseases, making just enough money to stay fed, and they are thankful. They are thankful for life, for a life that we would loathe. The candlelit faces are just happy to exist, happy to have peace, and they cling steadfastly to their faith. Businessmen in America question their faith or their God when a deal fails to materialize as they hoped. Though I do not consider myself a very religious person, I find it refreshing to see these people so drunk with love of their Lord, and for their lives. Similarly, a Sunday morning in Entebbe is a sight to behold. Throngs of beautifully dressed women, and classily dressed men and children walk in rain or sun, through mud or garbage, blocking the road for minutes at a time, to stream into their neighborhood place of worship. If you sit outside on the porch at 11am like a good heathen, the breeze carries in mixed sounds of vibrant and energized hymns from the surrounding churches, and it sounds beautiful. No monotone druid like chanting of classic God fearing Christian hymnals, just beautiful Africanized versions that you almost want to dance to. This coming from a white guy with no rhythm.

A TYPICAL HOUSE IN THE WOODS


Ugandan children are something wonderful. Every experience I have had with them so far has put a huge smile on my face. Venturing off either on foot, or bicycle into some of the mud hut neighborhoods surrounding Entebbe I constantly find myself a spectacle to behold and therefore the center of attention. “M-Z-U-N-G-O!!!” (white person in Kiswahili, though not meant in a degrading fashion) they scream as I go by, their hands waving high above their smiling faces, sometimes swarming around me wanting to slap hands or practice their latest handshake. On one bike ride thru a neighborhood that probably never sees any whites, I coasted by three small children getting a sponge and hose bath in the front yard. All were stark naked and covered in soap suds, their mother standing behind them scrubbing away, as they stared at the ground. Upon hearing my tires crunch over the gravel all eyes were raised in unison, all three respective mouths arched into gigantic pearly white smiles, and all three bodies quickly forgot the sponge bath taking place. The roar of their greetings and laughter far outdid the irritated shout of their mother as the three naked bodies charged down the street behind me, undoing all the scrubbing their mother had done, obviously without a care in the world. “Helloooo Mzungo! How are you?!!!” shouted repeatedly as mud replaces the soap suds that have wafted away. It was a hysterical sight to see. I said my hellos, they all giggled, and stood in the middle of the road naked, dripping, hands in the air waving goodbye as I rode off toward town laughing. Mr. Mzungo, that’s me.

AS CLOSE AS I CAME TO RAFTING THE NILE


I finally was able to visit the Nile, yet was not able to raft its incredibly huge rapids. Next time. I was also unable to fish for Nile Perch. Next time. I did, however, spend two days completely incapacitated with illness, shivers, and shakes so I must get tested for malaria when I return to Chad. I also fudged a haircut, so had to completely shave my head, leaving me looking somewhere between a convict and a chemo patient. I soaked in the equatorial sunshine, enjoyed the local sights, sounds and smells and got some good laughs. In conclusion, I vote for Uganda over Chad and South Africa both, hands down, and I have only scraped the surface of the surface here. The land, the people and the atmosphere are all beautiful, and I highly recommend East Africa to all. Back to N’djamena for me.

THE NILE RIVER, JINJA, UGANDA