Illegal Milk and Chicken Club Sandwiches
I would like to start this entry with a correction to my last two. Now, I assure you, I know the difference between a ferry and a fairy. It may not have appeared that way in my last two entries, but I do! Thank you, Mom, for bringing that to my attention. I have to say, I hope some of you, along with my mother, envisioned me being carried from shore to shore by Tinkerbell or Eddie Izzard (or someone like him) instead of a big, floating mass with a motor.
I returned from Ssese unscathed and with enough time to rest and do laundry before going to Gulu. My plan was to leave for Gulu with Shaina on Monday morning. Sunday night around midnight I got violently ill. Giardia. Again. I have never been one to get sick often and Uganda is making me feel like a weakling. This is the 5th time I’ve been sick in a year. I don’t think Uganda is too dirty, I think America is too clean. I refuse to use hand sanitizer because I think it is very condescending to the culture, and I don’t carry wet wipes in my purse (though I have developed a habit for stealing toilet paper), and apparently my punishment is a lot of quality time with my toilet. So…since March I have had giardia 3 times, but it turns out that it has been the same giardia, I just did not treat it properly. NOTE: travelers, do not be lazy or cheap, just go to the doctor when you’re sick. Giardia cannot be cured with cipro, it can merely be treated, but the parasite will remain in your small intestine and every time it rears (no pun intended) it’s ugly head it becomes more and more fierce. This is the problem I faced. BUT now I am taking the proper medication and I’m doing much better, so much in fact that I was able to finally head to Gulu yesterday (Wednesday).
My trip to Gulu started early on Wednesday morning. I was to meet Shaina at La Fontaine at 6:30am, and thus grabbed a boda from my house at 6:15am. We arrived at the bus park around 7 only to sit there for an hour and a half before the bus filled and we were on our way. I was absolutely exhausted because the day before I adopted another kitten (I swear this is the last one) and it is so young and tiny and requires a ton of care right now, so sleep wasn’t much of an option for me or my house mate. I sat on the bus awake for about fifteen minutes before passing out, not even to wake up for our departure. In previous posts I’ve written about this stretch of road that has somewhere around 80 speed bumps, one right after another. A few hours into our journey I woke up not knowing where we were. I was trying to gage our progress based on the speed bump factor, but according to the time I knew we should have passed speed bump hell by now. I looked at Shaina, half way thinking they had finished construction and the speed bumps were gone, but she said, “oh no, they’re still there and we passed them”. How in the world did I not wake up for that?! I felt my head, the side nearest the window, and there was a massive, sore lump just above my temple indicating that we had in fact gone through that section of road. Again, how did I not wake up? Shaina and I have deduced that I hit my head on the first speed bump and it knocked me out so it was like I was still sleeping. Hmmmmm. It still hurts.
After that I was in and out for a lot of the ride, until, that is, we reached Kiryandongo. Now, police checkpoints are normal in East Africa. They pull large buses and cars over and take a quick scan of the vehicles contents and then you’re on your way. In Kiryandongo, however, we were not so lucky. The police on the main road instructed our driver to pull in to the police post’s land, and I saw that there were two other buses parked in front of us. The passengers were all out sitting or standing under a mango tree, and then as soon as we parked the passengers on my bus began offloading as well. Police officers were taking the large, yellow jerry cans from the boot under the bus, emptying the contents onto the ground and cutting the cans in half, lengthwise as the passengers stared in confusion. After a few moments, people started trailing off into the corn field to relieve themselves, and I had been holding my bladder for some time (I had been unsuccessful in my pre-departure dehydration) so decided to join. I gave Shaina my bag and followed the stream of women into what had unofficially become the ladies room in the corn field. The men, lucky dogs, got to urinate by the two Ankole cattle grazing in the field. I suppose the men didn’t need the privacy provided by the large corn stalks.
I find the “perfect” spot, unfasten my belt and jeans, realizing quickly why so many women here travel in long skirts, and squat directly into a thorn bush. I let out a whimper as three Ugandan women laugh at me and say “sorry” and my penis envy returns.
After removing the small sticky thorns from my butt and refastening my jeans and belt, I head back out to the open to meet Shaina and tell her about my plight. The police are still fussing over our jerry cans, so Shaina and I find a shaded area and find a place to sit on the ground. The men’s “toilet” was unoccupied so I decided to go over and see the Ankole cows up close and get some photos. They are magnificent animals. I snapped some photos and went back to Shaina and we played a couple games of MASH to pass the time. Everyone seemed to start heading back to the bus, so like good little sheep, Shaina and I followed. We boarded the bus, found our seats and then everyone on the bus began to freak out. It seemed that the police had decided to take our driver to court! Everyone was speaking in Luganda so of course Shaina and I had no idea what they were saying so we asked a guy sitting next to us. He said that the jerry cans contained milk and it is illegal to transport large quantities of milk. So now they wanted to take our driver to court. Huh? Over milk? This did not make sense. Then something happened and I’m guessing the driver said that they shouldn’t take him because he was not in charge of loading the bus, it was the conductor that should be taken, so the conductor takes off running down the road, followed by police carrying AK-47’s. This is where I really started to doubt that it was milk in those jerry cans. The passengers offload again, but then the bus engine started so we all got back on. We backed out of the space and got back on the road and stopped again when we reached the conductor who had taken off and been caught by the police. Everyone on the bus started screaming and some got off, and I was too afraid to look, though it was clear that the conductor was being beaten by the police. Then we were on our way, business as usual. After that point, I clearly couldn’t sleep anymore; plus, my favorite part of the journey wasn’t far ahead! Karuma Falls is the most beautiful part of the River Nile that I have seen thus far. If you jumped in at this point, you would die. And just after you cross the bridge over the falls there are ALWAYS tons of baboons waiting on the other side. I love it! I counted 11 baboons this time, just on my side of the bus, including a newborn baby resting in her mother’s arms. Beautiful. One of the baboons decided to charge our bus while we were passing. I’m thinking these fierce animals are best seen from inside a moving vessel, not up close and personal.
After Karuma Falls it’s only about an hour to the bus park in Gulu town. We started passing the larger IDP camps, including Bobi which One Mango Tree will be working in from now on.
We reached Gulu town and I told Shaina that we should wait until most of the people had off loaded for our backpacks were tightly stuffed in the overhead shelving (there was no room left in the boot due to the illegal milk we were carrying). I struggled and struggled to free my bag when some friendly Ugandan rasta came to help me. He told me that I needed to eat more posho (maize-meal paste) and matooke (steamed or cooked green banana) so I would grow strong. I showed him my muscles and said, “I am strong, but unfortunately also short”. He got a kick out of this and gave me his card. Shaina and I made it off the bus, made our way out of the park and grabbed two bodas to Hotel Kakanyero.
When we reached we were filthy, famished and exhausted. While Shaina showered I decided to call Lucy and Pamela at GWED-G to tell them I had reached safely. Pamela is in Kampala for a meeting but she told me to go to the office today to meet with Francis and Peter, the coordinators for our One Mango Tree project, so I am about to do that. Lucy knew I had been sick so she told me to take a shower, get some food and then rest and to come see her today too, so I am also about to go do that.
After our showers we headed to Maq Foods for some nourishment. Patrick, the owner, is in Kampala taking care of his sick son, so I’m not sure if I will get to see him on this journey, but I noticed right away that the place had changed. The first time I went to Maq Foods there was no menu, you just had to either know or ask what they had. The last time I was there (in March of this year) they had started making Indian food and had a very extensive Indian menu, but the menu didn’t contain any of the non-Indian food offered. This time they have a new menu with tons of new foods. Shaina and I were so hungry, and everything looked so wonderful we could not decide. We ordered several things and decided to share. Now, before yesterday, Maq Foods was fantastic simply because it was one of the few places in Gulu town that offered “western style” cuisine. The quality wasn’t superb, but in Gulu your standards are slightly different so a stale croissant can be the most delicious thing you’ve tasted in a long time. The quality of their food has improved tremendously, along with their menu! We got an avocado stuffed with tuna (or as the menu says, tuner) salad on a bed of mixed salad, veggie samosas, a fruit salad and a chicken club sandwich. It was all absolutely amazing (and not in the Gulu context)! It really was fantastic.
We left Maq Foods stuffed and happy, and even more exhausted due to the food coma. We headed back to Kakanyero, I promptly put on my pajamas and got into bed and started reading The Independent (a new weekly “subversive” magazine here in Uganda). I wanted to check my email and write this blog, but the energy was not there at all, and I was asleep by ten.
I have a busy day ahead of me which starts with going and seeing Lucy and the tailors! More later from the northern part!
