On a recent business trip up North, two things happened in
one time that made my day particulary memorable. The first going through a small
village seeing a completely naked man hand and foot cuffed waddling around in
no particular direction. The more surprising thing perhaps was the fact that no
one even turned their heads as he walked around (like the same nonchalance I
saw in Rwanda when no one really reacted to the vomit in the bus scene going to Bujumbura).
I actually later realized that he was probably mentally ill and the town people
had done that to him, which really isn't so funny and it reflects how poor
services are for people with mental disabilities.
Later in the day I was on a bus that broke down several
times. We would start-up and go some short distant and then the engine would
fail. We were stopped for about an hour trying to fix it when a passenger lost
patience. He somehow got a boda boda taxi to come find him (we were in the middle of
nowhere so I’m not sure how he managed this) but as soon as he left the bus and
jumped on the boda the engine failed. He started rolling backwards down the
hill on the moto and it was just too hilarious to not burst out laughing.
Acholiland, as some people call it up here, is the home of
the Acholi people. It’s not a place most or really any tourists go but it has its
own particular charms. Like for example, the abundance of pork roasting joints
or the way it can almost sound like singing when people greet each other with
their common call and response. Or how for some reason people think when I say
my name that it’s “Henry.”
The North has a
distinctly different feel from the rest of Uganda. People don’t really eat the
normal ever-so-popular banana based dish matoke. The roads are even worse and
dustier. The Acholi’s don’t seem to be huge fans of the Buganda, the Kampala
based dominant people. Sometimes I see something that I don’t see anywhere else
in Uganda: NEW cars, even wrapped in the plastic still. I recently had the
chance to ride in one and can elaborate a bit more.
I was actually in a very uncomfortable matato (bus taxi) on
my way back up North recently on what should have been leg 1 of 3 with
transfers and 8 hours of no leg room and three babies, chickens, and whatever
else usually gets thrown onto your lap in a matato. We were several hours from
any border but these new cars are so recognizable and really are only going to
a few places; mostly South Sudan for government officials there. 1 hour into my
trip, somehow our matato driver knowing my final destination, he was able to
flag a driver down of one of these new cars and get him to agree to take me up
North. There’s really only a few roads which go that way and again no cars that
look like this so it makes some sense but is still pretty amazing. Mike, the driver, is a transporter,
driving the +20 hours every week from Mombasa, a port city in Kenya, to Juba in
landlocked South Sudan. Besides the interesting conversations with such a
person, air conditioning, and ridiculous leg room comfort, one other bonus from the trip
was a funny story. Mike pulled up beside another nice car blasting African music
with a dancing--alone-driver and got him to pull over and literally trade
the CD’s from each other’s stereos on the spot. The exchange made me smile.
I’ve also included some recent pics. from Acholiland here
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| The little girl who cries when I came close to her. This is where we keep the chickens |
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| Fort Baker (also sometimes referred to as Fort Patiko) -a very old Arab slave fort |
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| Arua falls, about an hour from Gulu |
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| On the road with co-worker Dennis at the landing site in Panyimur |
