Life in Africa continues…
Let me start with an anecdote that illustrates African life pretty well, I think. A few days ago, we took a shared taxi (which the Ugandans call a matatu) from Mbale in Eastern Uganda to Sipi Falls, a journey of about 45km. Apparently the trip is too short for minibuses (which are called matatus in Kenya but, confusingly, taxis in Uganda) to bother. We were packed in like sardines into the station wagon with two passengers in the front and four in the back (very uncomfortable, but good practice for the taxi-brousses of Madagascar).
Soon after leaving Mbale, the driver stopped, flagged down a boda-boda (motorbike taxi) and one of the passengers in the front got out and jumped on the back of the bike – none of which made much sense to us at the time. We soon found out what was going on: we were coming up to a checkpoint and the traffic police weren’t going to allow two passengers in the front, so the idea was to get through the checkpoint with five passengers and then pick up the other passenger at a pre-arranged spot on the other side.
It didn’t work. The traffic police somehow knew/suspected what our plan was and stopped the car at the checkpoint and refused to allow us to continue. Apparently the driver also had “previous cases” and the car wasn’t up to standard, so he was forced to get out and one of the traffic police got in and drove the five remaining passengers back to Mbale. In between the Lugandan sentences there was some English thrown in and I repeatedly heard the policeman say “1 and 3” to refer to the number of allowable passengers (amazingly, this is also the same number of passengers the car was designed to hold, but I chose not to press this point). The policeman also stressed to everyone that it was much better to follow the law rather than try to find ways around it.
Back in Mbale, another driver then approached us all to make the same journey. We told him that the traffic police wouldn’t allow more than four passengers, but he took all five of us anyway and then he and the Ugandan passengers immediately began devising ways to run the checkpoint. We set off and as we neared the post, we turned off the main road and navigated a series of dirt roads through Mbale’s ‘suburbs’, re-emerging onto the main road beyond the checkpoint. We then picked up our sixth passenger who had been patiently waiting for the first car for some time, and later we picked up a seventh passenger for good measure and he sat in the boot/trunk, which is actually the most spacious place to sit in such a setup.
On the way back the next day, we had seven adult passengers and four children – needless to say, we took the back roads again and skipped the traffic police point.
I think the moral of the story goes something like this: in West Africa, ‘checkpoints’ exist so corrupt officials can solicit bribes, so if drivers want to break the law, they can do so if they part with a handful of CFA. In the Ugandan case, the police officers are trying to enforce the law honestly and won’t take bribes, which is of course a good thing. But instead of that integrity filtering down to the population, it’s instead forcing them to come up with new and more innovative ways to get around the law, and in the end, the result is the same – in this case that Africa, whether in the developing east or the poverty-stricken west, isn’t ready for one seat per person.
We spent our last few days in Uganda running around Kampala getting things done and then making the trip to Sipi Falls, a lovely spot among lush green farmland and a sheer cliff face. Two nights ago, we took a 13-hour bus from Mbale across the border to Kenya and back to Nairobi where it all began.
So, after two months in East Africa, this part of our trip is now over. I’m happy to report that it was infinitely more enjoyable than West Africa in all facets (sights/food/infrastructure/transport) and we’re happy with what we’ve done; the unquestioned highlights were Masai Mara and Lamu in Kenya, Zanzibar in Tanzania and gorillas and the volcano in the DRC.
While on the subject of the DRC, we discovered a couple of days ago how lucky we were to have been able to go there in the first place (and not lose the $800 we had paid in advance for gorillas). The $35 tourist visa for the Goma area has been discontinued and the land borders into the western DRC are now closed to foreigners, except aid workers with a special $250 visa. Two Canadians we met were turned away at two different border points (one of which was the same one we entered through) shortly after we made it in and met others who were also denied entry even after trying bribery. Putting the pieces together, we think the border may have been closed even while we were still in the DRC. Apparently, this was all sparked by increased rebel activity culminating in the killing of three Indian UN peacekeeper troops.
Leaving East Africa behind, we’re flying to Madagascar tonight and by tomorrow night we’ll hopefully already be in a National Park awaiting our first lemur sightings. Madagascar is too large, and the transport/roads are too poor for us to see everything we want to see in 30 days, but we’ve made an itinerary that we think will work well, allowing us to see lots of different types of lemurs and a few of the other natural wonders that the country has to offer.
Tags: Africa, East Africa, Uganda
Nick