Uganda - 1

The rondawel with the rats

Crossing the line

The Beer garden at the hotel

Kampala City Hall

Marabou storks own the place

A view of Kampala

Entebbe and Masaka, Uganda

Wednesday

There is something about Uganda which I love. Maybe it is the fact that when you land at Entebbe you come in over the Lake. Maybe it is the lush greenness of everything. Maybe it is the people who are as warm as the climate. I just know that when I land at Entebbe, even as I hand over my 50 bucks for the visa, I feel welcome. The hotel staff remembered me – after only staying here for 2 nights last year, one of a crowd of about eight.

Anyway, here I am at the Airport Executive Hotel in Entebbe. I would call it more of a motel really – single story, small breakfast room, beer garden. Reminds me of the Rode Inn in Flagstaff and costs about the same - $60 a night for bed and breakfast. Hope the company realises how much I am saving them by not staying at the Sheraton! I like this place partly because of the proximity to the airport – about 5 minutes drive. Kampala traffic is legendary and one doesn’t want to get stuck in it when one is on the way to the airport. I prefer to fight it the day before.

I am a reasonably good packer but do sometimes forget things – this time I forgot my running shorts and sleep shorts. What to do. I asked at reception. They said I could buy them at the local supermarket, but since it was after dark, suggested I take a “boy” as company. Well the “boy” turned out to be a man called Joseph, but whatever, we walked down to the local shop and asked about shorts. We were shown a selection of Boxer shorts at the back of the shop, all made in China. They weren’t badly made and the price was good (7000 Ugandan shillings, which is about R28) but the Large looked like it would be tight on a 12 year old, so I had to rummage through until we found XXXXL and then I bought both of those available. Surprisingly comfortable.

Thursday

Today I had a meeting with a colleague in Masaka which (I thought) is about an hour’s drive south of Entebbe. Turns out the only half-decent road is through Kampala so I might as well have stayed there. I was collected at 7 sharp by a driver in an official vehicle, a 4 x 4. His name was Charles and he was a thoroughly good fellow. We picked up a second party in Kampala and then headed south. Or was it south west – I am not sure. The road wound through villages. The area around Lake Vic is so populated that there aren’t really any areas which are not inhabited except for the marshes / swamps. I spotted a few kingfishers, marabou storks and a cluster of forest fever trees (Acanthocleista Grandiflora) which surprised me, but maybe this is where they thrive. Have only seen them in the Kruger Park and Kirstenbosch. In parts the road was badly potholed. In others there were construction works and we slowed to a crawl. I was informed afterwards that this is one of the roads with the highest death rates in the country. In one of the marshy parts they had a digger lifting out great mouthfuls of mud and dumping them in waiting trucks. Just beyond its reach I saw a thick black wire lying exposed in the reeds. What is that I asked. Oh that is the fibre optic cable connecting Rwanda and Kenya replied our driver. Scary!

On the way home we stopped at a coffee house which is right on the equator. Food, drink and artwork is sold in aid of AIDS orphans. I ordered an iced latte and my traveling companion a cappuccino. Plus two wraps. Nothing remarkable about the food. But I am including the incident because the building was a very large "rondawel" - round house with a peaked, thatched roof, no ceiling. While we were placing our order there was a fairly loud "thunk" from just behind us and we looked round to see that a large rat which must have been climbing in the rafters and lost its footing, had fallen out and landed on the floor. Probably about 20 feet. Remarkably, it ran off, none the worse. As if that wasn't enough, another rat fell out of the rafters a short distance away. We hurried out to the veranda before any more fell, hoping that none would fall in our lunch in the meantime. Bizarre.

Not as bizarre but getting there was the display at the exact place where the equator crosses the road. A large concrete circle with N and S marked. Good for photo's. OK, fine. But just next to it, three basins on tripods. The one on the equator indicating that water placed therein would drain straight down the hole without swirling. The one on the north (about 5m north of the equator) indicating that water would swirl one way and the one on the south indicating it would swirl the other way. Bollocks. Can't believe it. Not at 5m. Am I wrong?

I have heard that at the equator the sun always rises at exactly 6 and sets at 6. Not true - today it set around 6.30 and time zones mess up that theory anyway. One thing about equatorial areas that does appear to be true is that there is very little twilight – very soon after the sun sets it is dark.

I got back to the hotel around 5 so decided to go for a run (in my Boxers!). Entebbe is hilly and our hotel is halfway up a hill. The fancier houses and better areas are on the tops of the hills. So it made sense to run uphill rather than downhill. The road led up to the presidential palace. I know from visiting capital cities around Africa that one doesn’t want to look too interested in such buildings or one is likely to be taken in for questioning. So I ran around it doing my best to look uninterested, past the Lake Victoria Hotel and came to the golf club, down the centre of which I spied a good looking dirt road running towards the lake. There was a notice warning visitors to beware golfballs but I could only see two golfers and they appeared to be discussing politics rather than teeing up to drive off. As the road descended between the fairways I noticed what looked like plumes of white/yellow smoke ahead. Getting closer I realised they were clouds of gnats. They completely blocked the road. I had no other option than to turn back or run through them. I chose the latter and soon regretted it. I had gnats in my hair, gnats in my eyes, gnats in my mouth, gnats in my groin ... it didn’t matter whether I put my head down or not – they just got into every orifice. The road led to a water intake plant on the lakeshore which was fenced and gated – I checked out the view and then turned and headed home as it was starting to get dark. More gnats. Clearly they weren't worried about the dark. I ran past a church and heard a choir rehearsing. A family was sitting around a small fire in a yard in front of their shack, sharing the evening meal. A preacher roadshow was blaring out over loudspeakers closer to home. I took a quick shower and went to sit in the beergarden to read and reply to my emails. When a waitress appeared I ordered vegetable curry and chapatti, fruit salad and a Nile beer. The last of the sunset was disappearing in the west and I could see and hear the big planes coming and going at the airport. There were mosquitoes aplenty but they seemed more interested in the light of my computer screen than in biting my ankles. Next door at the Pentecostal church the midweek service was in full swing with much singing, praying and preaching. Life felt fairly good, even with the heap of work I knew would keep me up till midnight.

Friday

Today it was Kampala. As I have said, Kampala traffic is infamous – I had been warned that getting into the middle of town would take one and a half hours at least possibly more, this despite it only being around 35km. It is reasonably free flowing until you reach the final five km but then ... gridlock. So I arranged for the taxi to pick me up at 8 since my meeting was at ten. Couldn’t face the sausage and egg again so just had some toast and jam with a cup of coffee for breakfast. Taxi duly arrived early. The driver informed me that his name was Bonny (!) and that the trip would cost UGX 100 000 return. Sounds bad, but works out to around R350 or $50 which is a lot less than it would have cost in South Africa. On the other hand, in Cape Town I guess the window would have wound down and the aircon may have worked and the seat belt may not have been broken. Not that any of that really worried me. I was relieved that someone else was taking responsibility for my getting there on time. I sat in the back and went through some documents on the laptop until my eyes were crossing and I was feeling dizzy, then closed it down and sat back to observe Kampala. You know after a while one third world city looks pretty much like another. Same broken roads, same emaciated dogs and depressed looking cattle, same dirty sidewalks with informal traders plying their cheap Chinese wares, same ramshackle houses and shops, same unroadworthy, (how could any vehicle not be worthy of these roads?!) diesel exhaust spewing vehicles weaving in and out of the traffic stream, same motorcycles with one driver and one, two, three passengers seated somewhere behind, same cavalcades of politicians riding by while we wait and sweat in the African sunshine, same half finished apartment blocks and hotels waiting for an injection of finance (in Arusha there is one which has been waiting 10 years) and, yes, the same smell of, well, whatever. Eventually you just think it is the way things are and always have been. Occasionally I will think “I wonder what this looked like before the Europeans came, or during the colonial period” but usually I just think, “OMG, I can’t believe people endure this day in day out, year in year out...” but clearly they do.

My meetings went well and before I knew it it was time to hit the “jam” again and head back to Entebbe. I didn’t time it but I think it took about 45 minutes just to get out of town, and then about 30 minutes to get home. What the hell, I was in no hurry. Back in my room I checked the TV – ah yes, just like yesterday, only one channel. Yesterday it was the Chinese channel, today it is the Ugandan. Do I care? Not really. I complained yesterday and they obligingly switched it to CNN, which meant the entire hotel had to watch CNN! It is little things like that. I think the blades in the ceiling fan are mounted upside down so all the air gets blown upwards to the ceiling. You can’t (or dare not) drink the tap water but they give you only one bottle of water for 3 days. OK I can buy more, but I shouldn’t have to. And no pool! Whinge, whinge, whinge. I took a cold shower, changed into casuals and headed for the beer garden. Ordered a Club Pilsener – the waiter recommended it and assured me it was made by the same company as make Nile. Amd ja, it wasn’t bad. Down in the village the preacher was going at it hammer and tongs, mostly in Luganda but with the occasional bit of English chucked in for good measure. Actually it sounded like a dual act – when the one stopped for breath the other took over. Exhausting – and that was just to listen to. At the same time they seemed to be having a revival meeting in the church next door. My battery died just before sunset and I thought it wise to go in and avoid the mozzies for a while anyway. I managed to get BBC3 on broadband (!) and listened to a service from King’s College, Cambridge while the battery recharged. By the time I went back to the garden it was dark. I settled myself next to the light (have to see the keyboard) and ordered a soda and the tilapia fillet. I learned on a previous trip, don’t order the whole fish. For one thing it is huge and for another, they mean whole fish when they say whole fish and I don’t appreciate my meal watching me eat it. Unfortunately the fillet turned out to be at the opposite extreme. 3 rather miniscule cutlets (not fillets) with a huge pile of French fries and a sad little salad on the side. Oh and some lime slices. OK, it will do.

The music seems to be a mix of Ugandan rap and country. They played Chris de Burgh’s Lady in Red which reminded me that Friday night is my usual and only night alone with herself, which made me sad, so I sent her an sms telling her to splash out and have her hair highlighted. Then they played something that sounded like Kenny Rogers with words to the effect of “Love doesn’t live here anymore” and I just about cracked up.