A Ugandan Safari

 

Took a couple of hours to get to Gulu – the road for the first half hour was more like driving over a rockery. And we also had to stop a couple of times on the way to buy mangos and bananas from roadside stalls.

 

This was my first time out of Pader in 3 weeks and noticed the huge number of people walking or cycling along the side of the road for pretty much the whole journey. All seemed to be going somewhere or other and most were carrying things on their head or had huge overhanging loads on small bicycles.

 

Often the women had a young child strapped to their back via a wrap around cloth. And most bare foot and wearing grubby and dirty but colourful clothes. Gulu seemed a busy and gradually recovering city.

 

It was infamous during the Northern war for what I think were known as night walkers – people from the surrounding villages who would walk for up to 3 hours to Gulu each evening, sleep there wherever they could, often in shop fronts etc and then walk home again early the next morning.

 

They did this ever day because Gulu was felt to be safer, even thought it also saw some fighting. While I was there I managed to find an Indian restaurant for a good meal, get caught in a huge storm, find a few shops selling familiar things including Pringles, avocados and Digestive biscuits and banks with ATMs that worked.

Also another great sunset, this time in Gulu and yet another brilliant night sky – possibly even clearer and bigger than the one a couple of weeks ago in Pader. And a beautiful sunrise the next morning where I notice a huge number of bats around the trees near the guest house.

 

Meant to be leaving Gulu for Murchison Falls National Park at 6am but eventually leave at 7am. Soon stop for petrol and then get stuck behind a truck that had skidded off the road/track and blocked it.

 

Eventually get going and travel through a very lush region called Amuru past maize, sorghum, cotton, sugar, cassava, maize, palm trees with some large orange shaped fruit handing from it and some beautiful feather like local plants that apparently is unique to Gulu region.

 

About half way to the Park notice exhaust fumes coming into the bus but we open all the windows and continue on our way!!

I’m so frustrated by the travelling and the organisational chaos that I decide it’s time to find a nice lodge rather than the student dorms. A good decision as it’s a lovely place with a pool, a great view down to the Nile, western food including salads and cheese and luxury of luxury hot running water – finish up having 5 showers in just over 24 hours.

 

And things continue to improve as Murchison is a brilliant National Park. Meet a couple of French guys and join them on a lovely boat trip to the impressive falls and a game drive and see:

 

• About 300 hippos swimming in the Victoria Nile, including one jumping out of the water and two appearing to try to mate until we disturbed them!

• About 20 crocs including one that I reckon was nearly 4 metres long

• A herd of about 40 elephants, huge herds of buffalo and water buffalo, giraffe and assorted antelope –hartebeest, oribi, kob and waterbuck – loads of warthog

• Vast African plains scattered with palm trees and lovely view across Lake Albert to the hills of ‘Democratic’Republic of Congo.

• 1 male and 2 female lions one of which climbed a tree which is apparently very unusual

• glimpsed a leopard in a tree but it was too dark to see properly

• Vast variety of some very large and very small birds including heron, hornbill, cranes, eagles, Maribu Stork, weaver, shoebill, something called a snake bird as it looks like a snake when it comes out of the water with a fish in its mouth and one gorgeous tiny bird that was a fluorescent blue/turquoise colour

• Didn’t see any chimps or other monkeys as they are in a different part of the park

 

Left the park on time on Sunday and the journey back to the WAR CHILD Canada office in Gulu took less than 3 hours arriving at 3.45pm. Things were looking up, especially when the Pader contingent said let’s get going straight away.

 

Somehow straight away turned into 1.5 hours later, including some shopping, stopping for petrol, some more shopping, returning to the garage for air, delivering a tiny box to someone’s home 2 minutes walk from the office downs tracks not designed for a vehicle – surprise surprise when we scraped the bottom of the vehicle on the track and damaged the spare type casing so had to stop to fix it. Eventually leave Gulu at 5.15 and then stop a couple of times on the way back for more mangos etc.

Get back to Pader much later than hoped and in foul mood – but quickly cheered up by another great night sky.

 

The next few days were very work focussed with more meetings with partner finance staff and senior managers and writing up my finance assessment report.

Completed most of the work by Thursday lunchtime and then did a presentation to the WAR CHILD and partner’s staff summarising my assessment. Went well and they agreed with all the key issues identified and proposed methods to address.

 

Only difficulty was another huge storm while I was presenting, including the loudest thunder clap I have ever heard or ‘felt’! Now need to complete the report, review in detail and comment on their financial policies/procedures manuals and prepare the training plan. But intend to do most of this back in Kampala.

 

On Friday some WAR CHILD colleagues had space in a vehicle going to a small ‘town’ called Kaabong in the Karamoja region of NE Uganda. WAR CHILD are planning to start some new programmes in this area in the new year and were setting up an office – not easy in a place that is known to be a reasonably high security risk, with no electricity, running water and not much food. And from a finance perspective no bank within 50k.

 

Decided to join them and it was an exceptional and very moving day. It’s very hot – above 40 degrees although fortunately there was a cooling breeze. But the scenery is stunning – lots of weird rock formations, rocky outcrops, huge cacti, dried up rivers and atmospheric scrubland/semi desert.

 

Reminded me a lot of the desert scenery in Arizona/Nevada. And the people were truly amazing – very much like the Massai in Kenya. About 100 people live in a tiny circular village no more than 100 meters in radius in 100% straw/twig/mud huts and with a straw/twig surround with tiny entrances – had to crawl through – for security.

We went to one village, called a manyatta, and had an hour discussion/meeting with about 25 members of the community at their traditional meeting place – a circle on the top of a small rocky outcrop beside the village.

 

 Via a translator they explained that bandits had stolen some of their cattle, burned some of their huts and that due to the drought their crops had failed.

They could only feed their children one meal a day and could no longer afford the approx US$15 per term to send the children to school. And they knew the UN World Food Programme would soon stop distributing the little food they currently received.

 

Yet the kids still had ambitions to be nurses and teachers. It struck me that in the medium/long term their current life that the community has led for hundreds of years, is no longer sustainable unless the security situation and the water situation can be improved. I’ve no idea if they agree or what they will do.

 

Saturday was my last day in Pader and much as I’m happy to be leaving I’ll miss it in a strange way. Have got used to the place and people and grown to like it – if only for the short term.

 

Spent the day packing, doing a bit of work and going to a wedding – all of the WAR CHILD staff had been invited.

 

Never experienced anything like it before – a pretty basic church but with a DJ playing very loud gospel Afro beat music, women wearing either 100% white or very colourful dresses with high pointy shoulders (aka Star Trek) who jumped up at every new song and were dancing,waving their hands in the air and hollering in a high pitched yelp.

They all ran out to meet and then serenade first the groom and then the bride – wearing very traditional white – into the church and then cheered, clapped and hollered at every key moment. And even the 4 priests were dancing and hollering!! Unforgettable!

 

And finally a 7 hour drive back to Kampala where somehow the roads seemed far better than my memory of them from 4 weeks ago – they are far better than some of the roads around Pader.

 

Feels very strange to be back in a city with electricity, street lights, paved roads, traffic, restaurants with menus and good food – went out to a great Ghanaian restaurant - and a house with running water, a fridge and washing machine and stairs. But I’m not complaining.