Day 4: A Long Day of Driving

Sat 1/31 - 6:55am Last night I wisely chose to use the mosquito nets around the bed and found myself waking up from a much sounder sleep. I used ear plugs to block out the noise of the guard dogs in the neighborhood barking incessantly at each other and when I took them out as the sun was rising, I heard the sweet sounds of birds chirping and calling to one another. Far more tropical and varied than I am used to, these dozens (hundreds?) of birds sang and cawed and twittered to one another in a happy cacophonous chorus that made me smile. I sat listening to them for a while in a meditative state before doing my morning reading of The Book of Awakening. Today's passage was incredible, addressing the practice of breathing as a spiritual teacher. "As a man in his last breath drops all he is carrying, each breath is a little death that can set us free." For a guy who came to Africa for three reasons, the most important being to relax and let go, this passage set off some very poignant gongs in my head. "Breathing is the fundamental unit of risk, the atom of inner courage that leads us into authentic living. With each breath, we practice opening, taking in, and releasing. Literally, the teacher is under our nose. When anxious, we simply have to remember to breathe." So I took some deep breaths and could feel myself begin to unravel in a new way. 8:50am I took my vitamins and daily malaria medication, ate some breakfast (giant pineapple, baked beans, and beef sausage dogs again), and hopped into the car with our John Wanda and all of bags, headed for Kampala on the way to Jinja (the source of the Nile), Mbale, and our final destination, Bumwalukani in the Bududa district. Of the 100 districts in Uganda, Bududa is one of the smallest with only about 180,000. Bumwalukani is one of about 100 villages in the Bududa district. Earlier I mentioned that I was here in Uganda for three reasons. Yes, to relax, but also to spend quality time with my father and to serve the rural school, clinic, and community that Dad and Holly have devoted so much time and energy to for years. I am so looking forward to seeing these places in person, meeting the people, and doing my little part to help in whatever way I can. There was a story on CNN as we ate breakfast about LGBT visibility in China. Marissa and I discussed the Ugandan stance on homosexuality. Apparently the country has always been religious, conservative, and intolerant but three Christian fundamentalist missionaries came over in 2005 and met with high level politicians and encouraged them to create legislation criminalizing homosexuality. The government went so far as instilling the death penalty, the Kill the Gays bill. In the schools they teach homosexuality as a deviance akin to incest and bestiality and in church there are sermons demonizing gays. Marissa thinks that the gays in this country probably don't even know that it's possible to be gay. It's just not an option. There are no stereotypes here and folks don't know how gay people act, they just assume all people are hetero. I talked about how nervous I was to come initially but made the leap because I realized that as long as I didn't tell anyone, no one would know I was gay. Marissa lamented how difficult it has been to adjust to how women are treated here. She has a wall up, she said, with Ugandan men. They are very forward with her, often asking her whether she is married, and it has made her very uncomfortable. 9:55am Maybe the worst traffic I've ever been in. We are seven miles out of Kampala and probably going an average of 2mph. It's bumper to boda-boda to bumper. The sightseeing isn't pretty, not an inch of real estate is unused: shanty towns, lean-tos, kiosks selling double the merchandise of a Chinese shop on Canal Street, makeshift butcher shops with meat hanging from hooks on the street. Some buildings are cement but most are constructed of wood and corrugated steel. Lots of small homes and shops are painted by businesses, mostly in red by Airtel and Coca-Cola. John explains that owners get a free coat of paint, businesses get free advertisements. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, but changed into a tee shirt because I've already sweated through it. It's a sticky 80 degrees out and I'm sitting in the direct sun in our van. 10:15am We are picking up John's friend Anthony in Freedom Village, the place we visited him last night. The poverty is astounding. So many children everywhere. John tells me that 55% of Uganda's population is under 17 years old. In America, the equivalent number is 20%. The children around the van while we wait for Anthony stare at me through the window, but communicate nothing. I think about how little opportunities they have. The very few possessions they own. The dirt roads they play in. The preverbial fishbowls they live in are very small. I don't know how I feel. I feel grateful and compassionate and jealous and sad and angry and don't let myself think very deeply about their circumstances. I smile and wave at them and they smile back. We are very different fish. 10:40am On the road into Kampala. The entire highway was completely stopped for 10 minutes, not sure why. We made small talk with our driver, Ronald. Dad: Exactly how many lanes are there? Ronald: As many as possible. 11:00am Finally in Kampala and waiting at the bank for the other van of volunteers. The ATM just ate my card. 11:25am The very unhelpful assistant manager actually comes through and retrieves my card for me, scolding me for not making my transaction fast enough. Thanks, lady! Dad laughs at the situation, which infuriates me, but after a few minutes I'm no longer upset. Between all the traveling and the traffic I am so ready to be in the village already. 1:00pm Marissa has finally arrived with the Sims family, Peter, Wendy, and their son Josh, who are also volunteering this week at AAH, and have been over a few times before. Although there are train tracks, there is no working rail system in Uganda, only trucks, so in addition to the cars, vans, taxis, and boda-bodas headed out of Kampala with us, there are a zillion cement trucks, fuel tankers, and big cargo trucks headed towards Kenya and Mombasa. 1:23pm Traffic has not improved. We are now turning off through Mbuya, a small side suburb, trying to beat traffic on the main road. John breaks down the sizes of the towns to me from smallest to largest: trading centre, township, town, municipality, and Kampala, Uganda's only official "city." 2:40pm We are finally out of the frustrating Kampala suburbs. There are still lots of little kiosks off of main road we are driving on, but much more space everywhere. Shallow valleys and massive fields of tea (green tea, John suggests), then sugar cane plantations. Densely populated little markets and clusters of shacks pop up every other hill. The landscape is much more lush and green but very dusty, and all of the plants and trees look almost crisp. The edges of every sugar cane plant are dried up, brown, and wilting down. Dry season here ends in March. Apparently it hasn't rained in weeks across the country, and there is generally little to no precipitation for months. John tells us that March and April are considered planting season, harvest is July and August, and dry season begins again in November. The roads are still busy, but moving a bit quicker now. Some buildings are made out of stone and brick with cement, which I realize now was not the case back in Kampala. 3:05pm Mabira Forest has a very thick undergrowth and tall trees, unlike anything else we've driven through. The traffic is lighter and we are really moving now. Trash litters the frayed edges of the dirty highway and every kilometer or so we pass a pair or trio of children walking or women carrying baskets or bags on their heads. Here I can faintly make out a middle white line in the road. With 17km left until Jinja, it begins to sprinkle. Road workers and market owners scramble for cover as the rain falls. John tells us that whenever rain comes during dry season, which hasn't happened in weeks, they say that the visitors have brought it, along with good luck. The sprinkling turns into pelting rain briefly and I can feel the luck. 3:45pm It has stopped raining. The bridge in Jinja that goes across the mouth of the north-flowing River Nile was built in 1952 has not been upgraded since then. There is a dam and 10 turbines, only a few of which still work. They were built to power both Uganda and Kenya, but even though there are only a few turbines left, the two countries still split the power apparently. We stop to eat just after crossing the bridge. I have Vegetable Samosas, a very bread-y Chicken Pie, a Banana Muffin, and some Chapati. The Indian influence is strong here and I've heard a lot from John about the politics of Idi Amin and his abolishment of the Indians and the current struggles between the two nationalities coexisting in this country. John says that Ugandans do not like Indian food, but it seems to me that a lot of the food I consider Indian is eaten here and has been adopted by Ugandan cuisine. We have decided to bypass Jinja Town to avoid traffic. We are now seeing much more livestock - loose cows, goats, and chickens. Here on this new road, there are much clearer lines painted between lanes and the shoulder and a nice median with a curb and maintained grass landscaping. Even though it briefly rained, it is still very dusty out along the road. I wipe my nose with a napkin from lunch and it is brown. 5:35pm Just woke up from another nap. The square shacks have been replaced by small circular huts with thatched roofs, huddled in clusters with dirt. They are farther from the street and each other. I see a few naked children here and there and more meticulously maintained farmland in small family patches. Less trash. More crispy palm trees. A big trash fire in the distance. We have just passed through a busy township with a very wide walkways where hundreds of people were gathered on either side, far more than we've seen today. There were loud radios playing and people milling about, not hustling for passerbys to buy their merchandise as they were around Kampala, but engaging with one another socially. It is possible they were just out of a church service of some sort? As we are leaving town I see two men approaching the township laughing and talking, and as we get closer I see that they are holding hands. A poignant image for a country that demonizes and misunderstands gay people. I am transfixed by the view. Each stretch between communities now has a few cows grazing. A brother and sister are pushing a bicycle with three big dirty yellow jugs filled with river water. Mothers are squatting together in this village with laundry. Teenage boys in rolled up jeans are playing with a soccer ball in that village. A group of people are walking together from one village to the next, dressed in colorful fabrics, almost like saris. A few young women are drying casava along the hot roadside, laid out carefully to dry on the shoulder of the highway. Children are hugging each other whispering and giggling, while turkeys congregate to peck nearby. So many beautiful little pictures of rural roadside Africans. These people feel far more relaxed and content than the folks we saw on the other side of the Nile. 6:00pm The road is now going through the very shallow Lake Kyoga (pronounced cho-ga), which seems more like a gigantic swamp. I inhale deeply. It smells incredible, sweet and earthly. The "lake" is a jigsaw puzzle of little rivers and deltas and tall plants with puffy heads, like those little white weeds that we used to blow on to make wishes. What are those called again? 6:30pm We are a few kilometers away from Mbale, where we had a 4pm meeting planned with a solar panel company, but due to the extreme traffic, we had to cancel. The goal was to get to the village before sun down at 7, but there's no way we'll make that. I have had The Sun Magazine sitting on my lap this whole trip and have only read two pages. The landscape is captivating and the afternoon sun is unbelievably intoxicating. You can see farther out into the horizon and Wanale Mountain looms in the hazy distance. We are passing by magical little moments and I can't capture any of them with my iPhone camera - not well enough to do them justice. Deep breaths. Little deaths. 6:50pm We have turned onto the bumpy red clay dirt road, 24 miles away from our destination. If I thought the other roads today were dusty, I don't know how to explain this. There are a couple other cars on the road and they kick up an unbelievable level of dust and dirt into the dozens of pedestrians walking and riding bicycles and motorcycles. There is still a bit of visibility, but not much breathability. I ask John how people can live and walk along these roads. He says "When you grow up with the dust, you don't even notice it." As the sun sets, it becomes much harder to see, with the occasional fluorescent light, roadside fire, and approaching car lights through the dust the only real sources of light beyond the quickly dimming skyline behind us. 7:45pm After 10 hours on the road (and a flat tire for the last quarter mile!), we have arrived in Bumwalukani at the AAH Guesthouse. It's a simple five room house with four bedrooms with four twin beds in each, off of a main gathering room. There is a separate house for cooking, storing food, and bathing (cold water showers only 5 minutes tops each from a rainwater storage tank), and a separate house for two latrines and a chicken room. You read that right. 10:25pm Dad and I unpacked our clothes into our room. There is a big bookcase where I was able to organize my things. The two housekeepers at the Guesthouse, Ruth and Jennifer, cooked us a delicious meal and we got to know the Sims Family.