Jesus Lives! Holy Uganda Batman!

Well, I have yet another nickname since being in Uganda… Jesus. I mean, my hair is longer, and I haven’t shaven in a couple weeks, and I suppose I can walk on water, but that hardly makes me Jesus. But several times a day someone shouts it at me, so hey, maybe I am and I just don’t know it yet. If things start seeming apocalyptic someone tell me what I should do, that’s a lot of weight for one person to be carrying around.

Anyway, I’m still in Uganda, which is incredibly beautiful. That’s about all there is to say. No amazing life-changing experiences, just a lot of beautiful landscapes, relatively nice people and little hassle (or at least transparent, easily avoidable hassle, compared to other places).
I think Uganda is the volunteer capital of the world (well, my world so far anyway). I’ve spent the majority of my time here with volunteers of some sort, Peace Corp or otherwise. I run into far more volunteers than I do plain old travelers. They are usually stationed out in small villages teaching at schools or clinics, or teaching organic farming, etc, and come into the towns and stay at the cheap backpacker places to get a break on the weekends, and meet travelers and enjoy a little familiarity. And eat somewhat decent food. The main staples in Ugandan cuisine are Matoke (mashed plantains, not the delicious Caribbean kind, more similar to dry flavorless mashed potatoes), groundnut sauce, beans and greens. I’ve had it a couple times, which is fine, but I find myself gravitating to the random Indian restaurants when I have the chance… yum.

Going back to Jesus for a second, this is a seriously holy-rollin’ country, on a Benny Hinn-like level. I see posters everywhere for the Chinese version of Benny Hinn, who apparently is coming to Uganda soon on a large crusade. I knew that Christianity had a presence here, but I was expecting something a little more subtle… but no, I think Pat Robertson has a vacation home here somewhere, I’m sure of it. It turns out that a lot of the political struggle in Uganda is due to the Lord’s Resistance Army, an extremist political party/group of nut-jobs in the north, who want the country ruled by the ten commandments and turned into a religious state. I don’t think they are quite on the level of say, the Taliban, but they aren’t exactly simple Jesus lovers either, and can apparently be pretty violent. Shows how little research I did before traveling here.

Another thing I’ll point out is that I see a lot of ‘overland tours’ going on… in large trucks/land rovers, with a group going from Cairo to Capetown or something similar. It seems an awful way to travel, taking in little, getting herded like cattle, and on someone else’s schedule. I mention this only to discourage any of you that may think of doing that sometime. I wouldn’t.

I spent a couple of days in Kampala, which is a fairly uninteresting place, but then moved on to the excellent Ssese Islands on Lake Victoria. I stayed at a nice little campsite run by a Dutch guy and his Ugandan wife, who cooked us amazing food for all 3 meals. Banana pancakes, samosas the size of my head, rice with thai peanut sauce, etc etc. They had their own little beach, where you could sit in a hammock or next to a bonfire and watch the sun go down. The islands are basically all rainforest ringed with sand, and really beautiful. I took a bus to get there, and then there is a ferry that crosses to the main island (Buggala) twice a day… which the bus drives onto, and then continues to Kalangala, the main town. And then a 15 minute walk to Hornbill Campsite… I recommend it to any of you that ever end up in Uganda.

While there I met… come on, you can guess… drumroll please… yet another English girl! This time an Indian girl raised in London named Kruti. She is a volunteer doing HIV work in Kampala… or was… she came to the islands for a couple days to think over whether she will stay and continue or not. Half way through her one year commitment she is thoroughly fed up with Ugandans and her organization. She thinks that Ugandans don’t really want to learn to help themselves, they just want aid workers to continue coming and doing things for them, and giving them money… a concept talked about in Paul Theroux’s ‘Dark Star Safari’ which I read a couple months ago (Thanks for the book recommendation Erinn). Kruti and others seem to agree with him. But in a country filled with volunteers and aid workers, I can see how it would be easy to begin relying on them.

Kruti and I traveled off the island together to Masaka, where we both decided we wanted to stay in a nicer hotel for a change and have a hot shower and comfortable bed! I ended up staying 2 nights and left there this morning, as it was a little too comfortable, and it was raining yesterday anyway. Masaka is a shithole of a town, but when you have a comfortable bed, why leave it anyway? So now I’ve recovered, and am in another even shittier town named Kabale, in the far south of Uganda. The drive to get here was beautiful, winding up into the mountains, through beautiful lush landscapes.

The bus ride was rough (due to a crazy driver, not bad roads), but uneventful, save for a few humorous events. First was an argument between a Ugandan and the conductor over the price, which is usually negotiable. The Ugandan English being used was the humorous part. In response to the conductor telling him that he had already written out the receipt for 8000 shillings, the passenger said “Nothing is solid, you could always vice-versa…”. Which I translate to mean “Nothing is written in stone, you could write a new receipt.” Maybe you just had to be there, but I thought it was hilarious.

The second and more humorous (depending on where you were sitting) event was just outside of Kabale… After winding up through the mountains, an older lady sitting in an aisle seat tried to lean over and barf out the window, but didn’t quite make it, so the wind blew it back all over the people behind her. And I don’t mean a little spray, I mean full-on puke all over one ladies face and neck. I masked my internal hysterical laughter and gave the lady a look of sympathy, which said “I feel bad for you, but not bad enough that I’m going to move my bag and let you sit next to me, because, well, you’re a little pukey”.

The not so humorous side of bus rides is that while seatbelts are mandatory, once you’re all buckled up the drivers seem to think that they will save us all from anything that could possibly happen. I didn’t want to be the one to break it to him that if we plummeted off the cliff next to us because he was taking corners at 65mph in a rickety old bus that the seatbelts would hardly be helpful.

I was a little bored of Uganda and thinking of just heading straight to Rwanda, but while in the Ssese Islands Kruti gave me a flyer for a place she had stayed on Lake Bunyonyi in the far south, which sounded really nice, so I took another detour, which turned out to be well worth it. It’s a beautiful lake up in the mountains, and looks a little like a fairy tale (or something out of the Hobbit, as my book described it). A very sprawling, misshapen lake with several islands as well. The hills are mostly terraced and green full of different crops. I stayed at a great place, Byoona Amagara, which takes up about half of an island called Itambira. To get there you have to hire a dugout canoe and help them paddle, which takes about an hour (or there is one motor boat that takes 10 minutes, which I opted for since my stomach was pretty upset that day… and canoes don’t have toilet facilities).

Most of the staff who work there are from the island, which probably only has around 20 people living on it, or less. They’re still working on building and expanding it, but it’s lovely and fully functional now, so again, all of you that are heading to Uganda soon, I highly recommend. Absolutely nothing to do, which was perfect, unless you wanted to rent a dugout canoe and explore the lake a little. What attracted me to it from the flyer was that it is 100% not-for-profit… all of the proceeds support the 2 local schools and is sponsoring about 40 children. Not only that but the owner also gives out a lot of his land to the local people who can’t afford land, so they can grow their own food… as long as they stick to a few rules related to organic farming and treat the land right. It’s a really nice project. They also welcome volunteers, which I was seriously considering, but I finally decided to stick to my plan and keep traveling to South Africa.

I met a very interesting Japanese couple on the island, that have been traveling Africa for quite some time. They did not know each other prior to the trip… he started in Turkey and was going overland to South Africa, she started in South Africa and was going overland to Cairo. They ran into each other in Kenya, and decided to travel together, so he turned around and completed her trip with her to Egypt. And then they worked their way back down and I saw them in Uganda, where they are out of money, and about to start jobs, so that they can then continue their trip. They both had the intention of traveling for a year, but have been in Africa for 2 years, and don’t plan to leave anytime soon. Their methods of travel is what makes them interesting… taking little tiny roads all over the place through tiny little villages, waiting days for a truck to take them to the next place. They even traveled through Somalia last year, which is a little crazy. Good for them. They were mugged on the beach there, and her camera was stolen, but it turns out that by chance he happened to live right behind their hotel, so upon seeing him that evening called the police, and then spent 3 days in an Islamic court testifying against him. And she got her camera back.

Another girl that I met on the island (in the Peace Corp, imagine that!) told me that while staying where I was in the Ssese Islands she got Bilharzia, along with 20 other volunteers… A nasty disease you get from swimming in still water. The people on the island swore that there was none in that part of the lake, but of course they would, why risk business and scare people away? I only had my feet in the water for about 5 seconds to check the temperature, so I’m fairly confident that I wouldn’t have it, but I’ll get checked out soon anyway.

I also realized while on the island that I hadn’t planned my finances very well, and didn’t have much cash. So I had to leave the island earlier than I wanted to, and on top of that, had to backtrack about 3 hours north to Mbarara, the nearest town with an ATM, as Rwanda has none in the entire country, and I’m headed there next.

While waiting for the bus for about 2 hours at the Mbarara gas station to head back towards Rwanda I made friends with one of the attendants who was trying to get me on the right bus. We talked the whole time, except when we were interrupted by people shouting ‘Jesus!’ from the passing buses. He wrote his address in my little book so that we could keep in touch… and when I looked at it later I saw that he had included his bank account information, in case I wanted to keep in touch financially. How sweet is that? He’s only the third person to ask for me to support them, which isn’t bad, but by the time I’m done with the next 3 or 4 months in Africa, I could have quite a lot of dependents. Do you think I could claim them on my tax return? Hhhmmm.

On a final note, I had a dream the other night about Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris whatever his name is, from Coldplay. We were sitting in their living room, having just come back from skiing, and were getting warm by the fire. Gwyneth was talking in a very proper English accent, sort of like Madonna does. Apple was nowhere to be found, perhaps with a babysitter. Does anyone have any ideas or interpretations? I really need help with this one. I’m especially worried because I don’t care at all about Gwyneth or Coldplay, and have never been skiing in my life… and certainly don’t have any cares about a baby named Apple. Please help.

I now sit safely in Kigali, Rwanda… which I’ll save for the next update… one last irony: There is a portrait of Jesus above my head in the internet café where I sit typing this… and people are giggling… I think I know why.

May you all be happy and well!

Wes / Mzungu / Jesus