Leah’s Travel Page

I’m in Jinja, Uganda right now. My hotel room overlooks the spot where Lake Victoria turns into the Nile River. It’s sunset and fishermen are canoeing out in their boats to drop their nets for the evening… It’s pretty spectacular!

I’ve just spent the last two and a bit weeks in Uganda, and we leave tomorrow for Mbita, Kenya (which is also on Lake Victoria). That’s good because a) I’ll have solid email for 5 days, b) my cell phone will start working again, and c) well, Kenya’s pretty darn cool. But I’m also kind of sad to be leaving because Uganda has been absolutely beautiful and amazing. I only have time to mention everything briefly now, but I’ll add more later.

We spent the first 10 days at Kibale National Park in the west of the country, near Fort Portal (for anyone interested in looking on a map). We stayed at a really remote field station in the North of the park, where you could look out your bedroom window and see troops of 50 red colubus monkeys soaring through the trees, and where the banana bread and avocado salad is made with fresh produce from down the road! (I’ve never eaten so many bananas in my life…potassium overdose is imminent). We also had several incidents involving baboons breaking into people’s rooms to steal food…they are major pests and crop-raiders, not nice at all! For my human geography class, we got to spend most days in the tiny village of Kanyawara, adjacent to the park, and got to know a bunch of the villagers quite well (I even speak a bunch of Batoro, the local language). The poverty is pretty extreme but it’s subtle and below the surface in a way I didn’t expect, so when you’re confronted with it it hits you pretty hard. There are kids everywhere because it’s during the two-month holiday, and they are so great! When we’d drive out to sites in the back of the pick-up truck, they’d be running after us for ages, shouting “Goodbye, friends!” I think the best part has definitely been all the people we’ve gotten to know.

My class also had the chance to visit many hospitals and health clinics, which was a pretty shocking experience. I’ll talk more about it later, but the most vivid memory is at a public, government-funded hospital in Fort Portal. They have 2000 in-patients, even more out-patients, and only 9 doctors in the entire facility. Walking into the labour ward, the rickety metal beds were packed so close you couldn’t walk between them, there were mothers and newborn infants sleeping on mattresses on the floor all over, hallways were so packed with foam mattresses there were only a few inches to walk by, and IVs were hanging from door handles. The entire ward had probably about 80 people in it with one nurse, whose resources were so limited she didn’t even have a blood pressure cuff! (We were able to buy her two later…it was extraordinary when we returned to give them to her and within 5 seconds she was using them on patients…they cost about 10 dollars each). The whole place had a huge impact on our group (there are 12 students in that class), the conditions were sooo much worse than I imagined, and I thought I’d imagined the worst!

I’ve hardly been sick since I’ve gotten here (one day of major throwing up but that’s about it…some people are sick with fevers, and frankly as long as I don’t have diarrhea, I’m okay).

After leaving Kibale, we drove down and spent a night at Queen Elizabeth NP, where we went on a boat ride on the Kazinga Channel and got REALLY close up to elephants, hippos, water buffalo…uh, warthogs. It was my first experience in a fully outdoor shower and with only three walls, and I got to share this special experience with two cockroaches the size of mice!! There was also a warthog (officially the ugliest animal on earth) and her baby in the sink area, so no one could go in…well, one girl tried and got charged and run over, so we all stayed far far away! There was also a brief moment when we thought three members of our group got eaten by lions after foolishly walking around at night, but it turned out they were just sitting around talking somewhere… You can never be too careful with massive predatorial mammals on the loose under cover of darkness! (that’s my new motto)

Then we went to Lake Nabugabo, a freshwater lake off western Lake Victoria, which is amazing because it has no schistosomiasis (a REALLY gross parasite), so you can go swimming!!!! It was amazing! The pest of choice there was the vervet monkey, which would swoop down from the rafters and steal the bread right from your hand as you’re bringing it to your mouth (all with their baby clinging to their back!). We also had some of the best fish and chips I’ve ever had (mmm…Nile perch), although I might just have thought that because I was sick of having rice, matoke (banana mash), beans and meat every day for the last two weeks!

After two days there, we drove a very long LONG drive to Jinja, through Kampala. Seriously, every single road in this country is under construction! When we arrived at the Sunset Hotel overlooking the Nile, we were all in paradise…although my standards have dropped substantially: 2 stars, there’s a whole in the ground somewhere that you can go to the bathroom in (my aim is now impeccable); 3 stars, there are walls around it; 4 stars, still a pit toilet, but has a seat (preferably don’t have to go outdoors)… 5 stars, flush toilet!!! Bonus points for having toilet paper, enough of this BYOTP already!

Well, it’s almost supper, our big Uganda send-off, plus we just had final exams (for one course) today, and it’s one guy in the groups birthday, so we’re having a big fiesta later! I’ll write more once we get to Mbita tomorrow (if we ever do…12 hours drive including my first African land border crossing and a ferry ride…gulp)

Hope Pittsburgh wins the Superbowl (that’s my one bit of foreign news!) and that the Canucks and Habs are lighting it up!

Tags: Jinja, Kenya, Nile, Travel, Uganda

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 5th, 2006 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Kenya, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.