Uganda

I feel that I don't have too much to report on Uganda. It's neither my favorite nor my least favorite African country - not much to either rave or complain about. Some parts of the country are quite beautiful. Like Rwanda, there is green everywhere and very fertile lands, but unlike Rwanda, I wasn't so happy with the people here. More than in any other country you had people look at you, stick out their hand, and demand money or other things. Most of the time, it was "Give me money!" Once, when we were driving by in the truck, we heard a "Give me burger!" Demands came from adults and children alike. I think that if I never came back, I would not feel like I'm missing out. I don't mean to be harsh, but at this point, I've been lucky enough to see a lot of wonderful places that would definitely take priority over Uganda.

Ugandan Immigration: We crossed into Uganda from Kenya and everyone but our lone Irish girl had to pay $50, and for a stamp! Most borders that require payment have the decency to at least give you a sticker, but not Uganda. Hmpfh! We handed our passports and $50 in to our tour leader - the immigration officials didn't need to see us and didn't require us to fill out a form - they just wanted the cash. By contrast, when exiting, we had to fill out a form and get fingerprinted! I think this first crossing into Uganda was especially annoying because we were only transiting through to Rwanda - we had to pay another $50 when we re-entered.

Kabale and Kampala: We spent a couple nights in each of these cities, but nothing is particularly striking about either of them. What Is of note is the number of things you can get for 1000 UGS (Ugandan Shillings)! At current exchange rates - approximately $0.40 - you can get any of the following: goat kebab, chips (fries) with cabbage, matooke (cooked potatoes and plantains), a rolex (chapati rolled up with two eggs, tomato, onion, and cabbage), soda, three plain chapatis, ten tomatoes, 4 avocadoes, and an entire pineapple. The list is way more expansive than this, but I have first-hand experience with the aforementioned items. :)


Cricket: I had the "pleasure" of attending my first international cricket match--between Ghana and Nigeria--and in Kampala of all places. Admission was free and the entire spectating section consisted of the eleven of us there who came from the truck. We got front balcony seats at the Oasis club house and spent a very posh afternoon watching a Twenty-20 match. I got a nice explanation on the ways of cricketing beforehand, yet I still found myself bored beyond belief for most of the game! I admitted that baseball is boring too, but I still offended everyone when I said this was probably the most boring match I've ever been to. :) I'll give it another shot I think, once the memory of this match fades. To be fair, the end was rather exciting: (skip if you are unfamiliar with the rules of cricket...) Nigeria was looking good, on their way to a win... To stop them, Ghana needed to get four players out or prevent Nigeria from scoring a lot of runs. Ghana got three players out with one bowl left in the last over. Nigeria needed only four runs to win! At the last minute though, we found out that one of the Nigerian batters was injured. Game over - Nigeria didn't get their last bowl because of the lack of batter. So it goes...


Lake Bunyonyi: Lake Bunyonyi is located approximately 8km from the town of Kabale. I only know this because a few of us decided to walk from the Bunyonyi Overland Camp to meet the truck in town. The lake is either the deepest or second deepest in Africa and is really quite beautiful. Our campsite was situated on the water and I spent a good part of our free day there lounging on the dock. Fantastic! I also got to visit a school... Some of the kids were really adorable. We got to observe them learning letters and numbers and they also sang songs for us. In turn, we awkwardly taught them "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "I'm A Little Teapot." I like kids, but they are also kind of gross: A lot of them had horrible sounding coughs or snot running down their noses; the kids also had a knack for trying to touch you right after picking their noses. Gross! I remember thinking to myself, "Gah! I Just did laundry!"


On the whole, I wasn't too happy with our visit to the school because I felt like it was a big donation-getting factory. The kids are continually disrupted by visitors and the schpiel they give and while they were busy having their snack, the lead guy said "Now we can fill out donation forms." I was already planning to donate, but it just doesn't feel right to have someone impose a donation form on you and then judge you while you fill it out. You had the option of sponsoring a child at $40 a month - but none of us had that kind of money on us. We Did get information about sponsoring a child in the future - we have a bank account number.

The Source of the Nile: We crossed it twice on our Ugandan exploits and camped close to Jinga (where the source of the Nile is located) at the Nile River Explorers camp in neighborhing Bujagali Falls. A lot of people went rafting on the class III - class V rapids. Watching their video later, I'm so happy I didn't go! The rafts flipped on pretty much every rapid and I heard reports of people swallowing a lot of (probably shisto infected) water and having legitimate fears about drowning to death. No thank you! Instead of taking advantage of the "adventure capital of East Africa," I've spent much of my time here looking into travel beyond Africa and the Middle East. So excited!


Tomorrow, we leave Uganda and reenter Kenya. We have Lake Naivasha and Lake Nakuru coming up and then five nights of bush camping - no toilets and no showers. I think the next chance at Internet (and toilets and showers) will be in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Until next time!