One Year in Uganda

All good things must come to an end, and for me that end is on Friday when I pack my meager possessions and get on a plane bound for London. I originally came to Uganda for a four month volunteer stint and have ended up staying nearly a year…

But first a quick re-cap…

A lot has happened since I last wrote on here. Four of my best friends managed to find their way to Uganda in August from where we spent three amazing weeks tripping around the country (see below post). We had an awesome time and it was great to share the place I’ve come to call home with others.

Preceding the above I had a small drama, namely I nearly got deported a week before everyone turned up. Due to my status of volunteer-come-employee I never bothered with the palaver of obtaining a work permit and hence paid some fun-filled visits to the Immigration Department every couple of months. On my August visit I returned to collect my application, only to receive my forms back with some illegible writing across the top.

Note: Some of the pictures are just random to break up my ramblings

Upon asking what this meant I was informed I had been here too long and needed to get a work-permit or residency permit by the next day (even though this is impossible!). Upon asking if there were any alternatives to this I was referred to a sign on the wall advertising the current rates for deportation (contrary to popular opinion, deportation is not a free flight home!). Seeing as I was only here for a few more months and the application for a permit takes longer than that I was in somewhat of a pickle. Fortunately I knew a guy who knew a guy, and to cut a long story short, after three days of stress, chain smoking and sitting in a hot car outside immigration; corruption worked in my favor and I managed to “buy” myself another 3 months visa for the tidy sum of $400 (probably more than an entire month’s salary for the kindly individual who processed my visa!).

Problem A solved. Problem B: I no longer had a job, seeing as the government had successfully removed the Jane Goodall Institute from the chimp trekking site. This was good in the respect that I had free time to spend with my mates, bad in the respect that I was relying on using my company truck and employment in a National Park to save us all a whole lot of money on our trip. Fortunately I managed to cash in some brownie points at work to have use of the truck and the guys at the park gate weren’t any wiser to the fact I was no longer employed in there and we got in for free anyway!

Upon re-reading this it sounds as if I have turned into a rather dodgy individual, bending to the whims of corruption that I frequently vilify… What can I say? When in Rome…

The New Job

So. Holiday over I still had a couple of months left in Uganda. Luckily I managed to score a job working in the same National Park, this time up on the Nile River. I worked for a company called Wild Frontiers who run fishing trips, game drives and boat safaris on the Nile. I was originally contracted to do some financial spreadsheets but ended up doing a whole lot more from being the accountant to driving game safaris in a 1970’s model ex-army truck!

I never got round to taking a picture, but it looked a bit like this!

This really was a dream lifestyle. I worked with two awesome guys from Zimbabwe and Sweden, and if it was quiet in the afternoons we’d take a boat out and go fishing. The best spot to go was up at Murchison Falls itself. I’ve been to numerous beautiful places around the world, but I have to say that up in the gorge, surrounded by lush jungle with the falls powering down on one side and the sun setting on the other, has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. To be able to go and fish there whenever we felt like it was a privilege I still don’t fully appreciate.

Now with all this fishing I felt confident that I could beat Geno’s record of a 34kg Nile Perch that he caught on our trip (see below post again). However during the full tenure of my employment, while people around me pulled in fish that weighed more than I did, I failed to catch anything more than “bait fish”. There were even some opinions floating around that I was just a bad fisherman! So on my last day of work me and some guys went out determined to get some fish.

As my luck would have it, ten minutes after we set out on the boat we encountered one of the worst storms I’ve seen in Africa, forcing us to pull the boat into the bank before it capsized. For the next hour we stood in the downpour, managing to catch some small bait fish (little fish you put on the hook to catch bigger fish), while watching the river turn a nice shade of mud, not the best conditions for catching big fish!

Enter rain.. Stage right!

The rain stopped and we motored out, finding the clearest bit of water possible. For the next half hour my bad luck from the last 6 weeks changed. Geno, your record stands; but I wasn’t unhappy with these three in thirty minutes!

War cries

Numero 2!

The Hatrick!

Of course life is never that easy. I had to contend with sleeping in a leaky tent during a wetter-than-usual wet season. Some nights I had to pull my mattress into the middle and sleep with all my valuables on top of me to keep them dry. Also, one night in what I would nearly call a typhoon, my tent decided to lift off and fly a few feet! Needless to say I installed some rocks around the sides the next day! Not to mention that with the wet season came the mosquitoes and my old nemesis the Tsetse fly… I’m all for the preservation of life, but with these two beasties, I make an exception!

Andy, a.k.a "Boss" doing his party tricks

The best thing on a hot day!

So a great couple of months, and to say thanks the company gave the missus and I a trip out to Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Lake Victoria. This is a place where chimpanzees rescued from the illegal pet trade get taken to rehabilitate. Even though I prefer to see them in the wild, it’s a great opportunity to see them up really close during feeding time, not to mention the idyllic location on a remote island on the lake!

Now gainfully unemployed, I’ve spent the last week doing the rounds and saying my goodbyes. Being low on cash and a bit retarded I decided to do another one of my walking missions, covering 70kms in 3 days, again to the bewilderment of the locals. However this time I took some water and had a good chance to think…

Kev Junior!!

Conclusion, Emotional Stuff and My Take on it All…

Winston Churchill visited Uganda in 1908 and called it “The Pearl of Africa”, a line now milked dry by every piece of tourism marketing material. Due to personal financial constraints and my torrid affair with the Immigration Department, I havnt actually traveled over the borders. I daren’t say that the rest of Africa is a pile of oyster gunk in comparison, but Winnie was pretty spot on when he came up with that one.

Uganda, geographically, really does have everything, from snow capped mountains to savannah to rain forests to the Nile to Lake Victoria. It’s one of the best countries in the word for primates (the main reason I came) as well as savannah animals like elephants, giraffes, lions and the rest.

As I mentioned earlier, I came here as a volunteer which would have meant quite a bit of time doing token work on a computer in the head office. Fortunately though, I was in the right place at the right time and found myself, from my perspective anyway, working in paradise; first in a tropical rainforest with chimpanzees, then on the river next to the savannah.

However, it hasn’t all been plain sailing. I worked in an isolated location, 30kms from the nearest town and 300kms from any decent medical care, shops or my unsupportive head office. If I was awake, then I was at work, which during peak season led to some pretty long days! It was a steep learning curve in autonomy; if something went wrong or broke I had to do my best to fix it. Also, living in rural Africa there are always complications: the petrol station is out of petrol, the road’s blocked by an over-turned lorry, the one cash machine in town is out of cash!

Driving a vehicle here has been an eye-opener. I reckon I’ve driven about 20,000kms in various vans, trucks and motorbikes, around 85% of that on dirt roads. A heavy rain can change a road completely, so you never know exactly what’s round the next corner. Among the various hazards on the road such as potholes, livestock and rogue people, the number one danger is Ugandan drivers. Driving on the left appears to be a formality, most cars are in bad condition and speed along with worn brakes that don’t exactly stop on a dime! It’s not un-common to drive down the highway and see a lorry on its’ roof. To validate my point, during my employment I was issued two company vehicles, both were rolled and written off within a week of me returning them to the office! A decent driving school wouldn’t go amiss in this place!!!

Yet, the most challenging aspect was working with Ugandan people. Coming from a completely different culture to myself, they have different perspectives on timeliness, common sense, honesty, quality of work… I wont go into detail, but lets just say that as a usually rather calm person, there have been times in this country that I’ve lost my rag completely! Being part of a local village community I’ve had to deal with some tricky personnel issues including: witch-craft, AIDS, malaria, child death, tribal clashes, just to mention a few! Fortunately the staff at my place were a fantastic bunch, and Im going to miss them!

The future for Uganda? From my perspective it’s a bit grim. A couple months ago there were riots in the capital. Over 50 “innocent” people died (that doesn’t include the undisclosed amount of rioters shot by the army). I daresay that as no white people were hurt this didn’t make much of a splash on the world news scene. Especially if Madonna was getting re-married or something equally as important happened. The riot (luckily I left town 12 hours before it broke out) was mainly a political protest against the government and is seen as a precursor to the elections in early 2011. On top of that, oil has been discovered in the west and there are already rumblings between the local tribes and the government over who gets what.

On a side note: one of the proposed drilling locations is on the delta in the National Park I worked in! All game drives are being re-routed, however no-one has figured out where yet!

In fact the drilling rig is going right about here...

While I don’t like to say it, I can see the proverbial shit hitting the fan by the time elections roll round in 15 months time. For the sake of all the fantastic friends I’ve made here I sincerely hope it doesn’t, but as the saying goes: TIA – This is Africa, we’ll just have to wait and see.

So that’s it. One year in Uganda. It’s been the hardest, most challenging but best year of my life. That sounds contradictory but it’s true. There are things I wont miss, but they’re far out-weighed by the things I will miss. All the amazing people I’ve met, the landscape, the sunrises and sunsets, the jungle, the river, the wildlife, the year-long summer, the freedom to live my life. The question everyone’s been asking me the last few weeks: Am I going to come back?

Definitely.

Uganda - The Tour Continues!

Not long after Kev moved to Uganda, talk of teaming up again for some travels began. Six months later, with a packed Land Cruiser (kindly loaned from Kev's old employer), a full tank of diesel (this from a similar sponsor) and three other Kiwis in tow, we set off. On board for this adventure was Trav (coming from Eygpt, who also joined me for the USA road trip), Joel (carrying on from Ghana) and Gene (who is currently working on oil rigs around Africa). Let the games begin!

Actually first, a quick catch-up. Seeing as Kev has had so much cool stuff to write about over the last year or so, I've been a bit slack on the blog updates. Somehow I don't think my comparatively mundane European excursions would garner quite the same interest as Kev's adventures in the middle of the African continent! So first up a quick summary of the few trips I've made since I last contributed to the blog.

Living in the middle of Europe means there's no excuse not to head away any time there's a long weekend or some holidays available. Since the start of this year I've tried to make the most of this with some skiing in the French Alps (seeing as Frano and the Columbi were living down there), some spring skiing in Norway (with the ever-hospitable Magnus and Gry), a nice week in Scotland (with the newly engaged Graeme and Tamara), a massive boys trip to Berlin, a couple of trips to Poland and several trips around Sweden (for cross-country skiing, snowboarding, kayaking and camping). Rather than get into any detail, I think I'll just say it's been good times all round and here's a few photos.

Ok, on to the African adventures! In an effort to dispel any myths or stereotypes that may hold true for other parts of Africa, I'd like to start by saying that the Ugandan people as a whole were incredibly friendly and the country felt quite safe for the most part. Uganda has certainly had its fair share of unrest over the years, most notoriously perhaps during the Idi Amin years. Unfortunately, successive regimes proved to be no better off for several years following his downfall and subsequent departure to the safety of Saudi Arabia (who were only too happy to accept him for his contributions to the spreading off Islam through Uganda). Thankfully though, the last couple of decades, with Museveni as president, have seen Uganda make good steps towards stabilising and progressing.

So with this in mind (and with the opinions of several expat locals who have lived in the region for years), it was perhaps extremely unlucky that Gene, Kev and I got robbed at gun point less than an hour after I arrived in the country! We were having a quiet beer at a local outdoor restaurant when we heard shots being fired just the other side of a hedge in front of us. Initially we weren't sure if they were fireworks or bullets. It soon became obvious though. We jumped down onto a grassy slope/garden beside the outdoor seating area and stayed put. Before long we had a gunman in front of us. It was several seconds before we were sure this wasn't security coming to help. I think the gun pointed at my face was the giveaway. So of course he asked us to empty our pockets and hand it all over. As we had come straight from the airport, almost everything was still in my luggage in the car. All I had was my mp3 player and I wasn't about to hand that over. Desperate for something to give him that wasn't my mp3 player, I gave him my watch and then continued to pat my pockets in earnest. Kev meanwhile had his wallet out, which was basically just full of receipts. Luckily he dropped some of them so I picked those up and pretended I was giving the guy money since it was very dark. Kev did the same with his wad of paper. Gene actually had some cash so he handed that over too. And not long after that the three muggers disappeared off into the night and it was all over. I had just spent £3 putting a new battery in my 15 year old Casio and Kev dirtied the knees on his freshly laundered pants. So we were angry! Actually, our relative good fortune was somewhat overshadowed when we found out that the idiots had unfortunately shot a guy who later bled to death.


That little episode cleared out the bad luck though. After that it was only good luck from there on in! Starting with our adventure portion of the trip, in Jinja. We came here to visit the source of the mighty (White/Victoria) Nile River (at Lake Victoria) and then to raft some of the biggest rapids that can be commercially rafted in the world. Luckily the guy that runs the place is a Kiwi and Kev had met him last time he was there. So we got discounted rafting and free bungee jumps! The rafting was a fun-filled day of awesomeness with several Grade 5s ensuring that we spent plenty of time upside down. Check out the video below (that's us standing 25s in)!

After that we headed north-west to Murchison Falls National Park. Here we saw the monstrosity that is the Nile forced through a 7m gap in the rock and then down a 43m drop. Mighty impressive. Then we continued further into the park to kick off our first game drive of the trip. Despite having visited plenty of zoos over the years, I still wasn't quite prepared for just how amazing it would be to see elephants, giraffes, lions, buffalo, antelope, warthogs, hippos, crocodiles, birds, monkeys and more, all together in their natural habitat. That night we camped in the game park sans the requisite armed guard who stays up all night to stoke the fire and let off warning shots if any animals get a bit too curious. It seemed like a good idea during daylight hours. However, about half an hour before bedtime, the sound of bushes being crushed caused us to think otherwise (and caused one of us to jump up onto the truck)! Shining our pathetic torches into the distance soon revealed the biggest elephant I've ever seen having a midnight snack only 20-30m away. Needless to say, a couple of the boys didn't sleep so well that night.

After another game drive in the morning, we left the game park and hit the boats for an afternoon of fishing. On the way up the river we came across one of the strangest sights I've ever seen; a dead hippo, bloated and floating upside down, with crocs trying in vain to tear it apart. One of these crocs had recently gone a bit crazy and grabbed a ranger off the back of a boat so we didn't hang around for too long. An enjoyable afternoon was had by all (and again, at hook-up prices), especially Geno, who reeled in a 34kg Nile Perch!

Nice work Geno!!

The next couple of days were spent in the amazing spot Kev has called home for the last eight or nine months, Budongo Forest. And to keep the trend going, it was practically free. Here we relaxed in the beautiful jungle surrounds and did what people go there to do; chimpanzee tracking. For several weeks prior to our arrival, they had had a fairly poor hit rate with finding the chimps on the daily treks. However, we struck it lucky and after only 10-15 minutes we had come across a group of seven or eight in the treetops, eating jackfruit and just chilling out. The noises were amazing (as seemed to be the case with most of the animals we saw on this trip) and their antics and actions were so human-like it was unbelievable. Before long they climbed down and made their way deeper into the forest, but not before one stopped and posed for some photos on a nearby branch. Magic.





Unfortunately, Gene had to leave us and get back to work at this point. But the rest of us continued on down across the equator (where we did the water trick and watched it spin different ways just metres either side!) to Lake Bunyonyi, where we relaxed for a couple of days after the hectic schedule of the first half of the trip. This was an absolutely idyllic spot tucked away in the south of Uganda. We paddled around in dugout canoes, read and swam (luckily it's one of the few lakes in this area that doesn't have bilharzia).

The guide book says this lake is 43m deep.

The relaxation prepared us nicely for our next highlight as we continued south to climb Mt. Muhavura, a dormant volcano in the Virunga Mountains. After ascending 1800m in around four hours, we reached the summit at 4137m. The climb wasn't actually a particularly difficult one but we still felt the beers were well deserved that night.





After deciding that we didn't have enough time to warrant a trip into Rwanda, as originally planned, this was our turnaround point. So we headed back north in our trusty steed, on to Lake Mburo National Park (via another couple of days at Lake Bunyonyi). This park is renowned as the only place in Uganda to see zebra and impala and it didn't disappoint in this regard.






Three weeks, 2200kms and two sunburns later, we found ourselves back in Entebbe, just south of the capital, Kampala (where we also spent a few days here and there throughout the trip). I was extremely happy to finally have seen a bit of sub-Saharan Africa, especially in such good company. There is certainly a different way of life than we're used to in the middle of that enormous continent. Time doesn't really exist, at least not in the rigorous, predictable and constant concept that we are familiar with. Here you may find that 40 minutes after ordering your meal, they are actually out of fish that day. Or that an invite somewhere will tell you the day but not the time. Consistency is also an unfamiliar concept in these parts. During the four days spent at Lake Bunyonyi we ordered the same thing for breakfast each morning, from the same waiter. Yet each time, as he slowly wrote down our order, he looked at the menu as if it was the first time he had seen it! The expats living here have a saying that covers these daily occurrences; T.I.A. (This is Africa). The number of times this phrase applies is unreal! Luckily, this kind of thing is simply amusing and somewhat interesting when you're only there for three weeks. However, after several months it has been known to turn normally relaxed, tolerant and patient people into fits of rage when having to deal with it on a daily basis in everything they do!

The rare Shoebill.

Huge thanks to K for all the hookups and excellent tour-guiding and to all the boys for joining us on this magic trip into the Pearl of Africa...