The Wheels On The Bus
As we reached to turn off the alarm in our unexpectedly fancy hotel room, reminiscent of something from The Block, with its timber feature wall, hanging chair and flying bird mural over the bed, we pinched ourselves to remember we were in Africa! Home of Rafiki, Sumba, Mufasa and Kimba the White Lion! So exciting! Though it was an early start this morning, a solid sleep meant we were ready to tackle all that lay ahead today. We had an amazing array of foods to choose from for breakfast – everything from custom made omelettes to pancakes, fresh fruit and a curry dish with a surprise ingredient of bananas. From all reports, it was a taste sensation.
After a safety briefing on the dangers of phone snatchers, who actually pop their hands through the bus windows to get their mitts on your mobiles, we closed the bus windows tight and travelled a short distance to the main Watoto church in Kampala for their Sunday service. This place was huge! In its former life it was a cinema and then it was used as a military headquarters for Idi Amin. Put to far greater use now, it has become a place full of joy and hope. Before the service, we had an orientation and induction to Watoto, where we learned more of the vision and work of this great organisation. As the needs of the nation have changed, they have shifted focus to include the vulnerable and poor in the community, raising money to start an agricultural centre where they will train and equip Ugandans to work the land and have a sustainable income from the produce they harvest. They explained that agriculturally speaking, the Ugandans haven’t ever been encouraged or taught how to plan for their future needs. For example, they may grow vegetables for now and eat them, not really having planned to plant more to grow up in their place. They gave us the staggering statistic that they have rescued and re-housed over 3000 orphans since Watoto was started and had looked after over 4000 widows and vulnerable women. It’s a wonderful and valuable organisation.
We were told by Daisy, the smiley Watoto representative that briefed us, she hoped we would be getting “jiggy-jiggy“ at church this morning. Relieved to find out she was referring to dancing, we joined the throng of local worshippers in the super high energy service, with two big gospel choirs on stage and most of the congregation dancing and singing along. The people were so welcoming and friendly and made us feel like we belonged.
The rest of our day was spent travelling six hours to Northern Uganda by bus. Our team, spanning two mini buses (with an extra one thrown in to transport our copious luggage) bumped along the “freeway“ towards our destination of Gulu. As the song says: “the people on the bus go up and down, up and down, up and down…” If I was raising my kids here in Uganda I’d advise them that a wise career choice may be to go into speed-bump building (either that or become a mechanic specialising in shock absorber and suspension replacement). They’d do a roaring trade. Speed bumps here certainly pack a punch and they are everywhere. These triple-barrelled bumps seem just randomly placed along the main road north. Some stretches of road have more potholes than road surface so combined with the speed bumps, it made for a bouncy old journey. Driving here is not for the faint-hearted and we were grateful for our skilful chauffeurs dodging a plethora of weaving motorbikes, overtaking trucks and missing the array of cyclists bearing wide loads of timber, chickens in cages or other assorted cargo that looked mighty precarious on the back of a pushy.
At about the halfway point of our journey, we had a promised pit stop. We had been forewarned by those who’d gone before us to beware of the horror of the roadside long-drop – a “toilet” swarming with flies and with an odour that could kill a brown dog. “Keep hydrated” they tell us, “Drink more water” they cry. Our obedience to this directive meant only one thing: none of us could avoid what was coming. You can only cross your legs in a jiggly bus for so long. So, fully expecting the bus to be arriving at this ghastly ablution block at any moment, you can imagine our delight when instead, the buses bounced up the driveway of a newish-looking petrol station. We lined up excitedly, ready to take our turn in the cubicles only to find that behind the closed doors were nothing more than holes in the ground, masquerading as toilets. To add to that, not a skerrick of toilet paper was to be found. Those well-prepared women in our group had tissues on-hand to ration between us (thank you Mandy and Debbie!) but that didn’t overcome the obstacle of having to squat over a hole and avoid wetting your undies. There’s a degree of skill involved that I am yet to attain. Julianne deserves a special mention as she braved the cubicle with no light and managed to aim effortlessly, remain fully-clothed and bone dry and… she was wearing jeans. I, along with my less-skilled sisters who had to practically de-robe to get the job done, so to speak, were in awe.
Back to the buses, we feasted on lunches we’d packed and sat back to watch the kaleidoscope of images passing by our windows. Long stretches of bushy vegetation were punctuated by little villages with shops and houses along the main road. Hand-painted signs adorned tumble-down shop fronts and each little village had a bright red booth where a money-lender sat. Though their poverty was confronting, it was heart-warming to see so many people congregating in groups, chatting, smiling, laughing. Everyone was outside. I wished the bus could slow down at points so we could have more time to look around. Lots of mums walked around with babies strapped to their backs, their gorgeous brown eyes peeping out from their swaddling. I saw babies being bathed in plastic tubs as dinner preparations were being made around family fires and clotheslines with cheerful bright patterned clothes, strung between sticks, fluttered in the breeze. The further north we drove, the more villages we saw with traditional grass huts. Our guide, Fred, gave us a great running commentary as we travelled and jumped off the bus at one point to get some cooked cassava, a root vegetable grown here, for us to try. We stopped briefly at a village to let the other bus catch up. (Apparently Toby had needed his own roadside pit stop behind a tree.) As we waited inside, our bus was surrounded by a colourful multitude of walking vendors, their wares atop their heads in baskets. Limes, lemons and bunches of bananas were ours for a price and through our open windows were calls to buy. Men with baskets of soft drinks on the ends of long sticks were also in the mix as were keen pedlars of “meat on a stick”. I could have partaken a warm Coke or even nibbled on an almost-ripe lemon but I’m not sure I’d be game to give the mystery meat a go.
As we reached the bridge that was the border to Northern Uganda, Fred warned us to put our cameras away. Guards he told us were “armed to the teeth” were seated at the border and were ready to confiscate any camera or phone they saw taking happy snaps. Our friendly waves were met with a steely glare and we crossed with caution, phones firmly in our pockets. The river we were crossing was none other than the River Nile. It was a bit of a thrill to look down and see rapids and waterfalls galore, hippo watching with eagle eyes. A couple of people swore they saw one but the jury was out as to whether it may have just been a big, shiny hippo-shaped rock. The wildlife sightings didn’t stop there as baboons were climbing roadside trees and ambling along the road, playing chicken with the constant stream of dusty traffic. Goats, long-horned cows and dogs also roamed around freely.
Kirsty initiated a fun-filled game of “if I went to the moon I’d take…” which helped to while away the time and was a nice change from Spotto. Eventually arriving in Gulu, we peeled ourselves from our sweaty perches in the vans and were shown to our hotel rooms. Our smorgasbord dinner was delicious and we had a great team-building session afterwards getting to know one another a little better in the process.
