ARUA. Blood, sweat and very low gears in West Nile Province

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The rain seemed relentless; I’d finished my breakfast and I was staring out into the wet greenness of the bush around Lake Nkuruba, I’d had another poor night’s sleep in my hut where the blanket on my bed never ever felt completely dry. The company of my fellow guests was good and the friendly staff of the picturesque lodge and campsite prepared some surprisingly good food but I was sick of waking up with a runny nose and I was keen to go somewhere where I could escape this ever present dampness.

One of the other guests, a young American guy had recently been working in Arua, and not unsurprisingly once he told me that the weather in that part of Uganda was completely different, I started hatching a plan to venture to the tempting heat and parched lands of West Nile Province.

This all happened several years ago and at this point in time the rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army were active in the Karuma falls area which was on the direct route to West Nile, the Gateway bus company were still operating on that route, but studying my map I was shown by my new peace corps friend another safer way of reaching Arua and avoiding Karuma completely. I took his advice by journeying to Masindi staying overnight there, and again in Wanseko where I jumped on an early morning boat that chugged unnervingly close to a pod of hippos crossing the north of Lake Albert near to where the Nile exits the lake on its long journey north. At Panyamur, on the opposite side of the lake shared taxis shuttled people to Nebbi and then onto Arua.

Border towns tend to have a bit of a reputation and Arua being a few clicks from the Congolese border and not a million miles from South Sudan certainly had this reputation. On this first visit to the town I remember being woken by gunshots in the night.

“Ah, you heard that, it was probably just a robbery.” I was told by a Ugandan guest at my hotel as he failed miserably to reassure me.

Nguli

Then here I was, a good few years later back in Arua. I’d gotten a cheap room at Rippons Hotel in the centre of town and learning that that there was a swimming pool at White Castle Hotel I headed off in that direction to spend a few hours slobbing by a pool.

“It is about two kilometres away” Khadija on reception had told me when I had asked, but after somewhere near six kilometres of walking in the hot sun I eventually arrived at the hotel looking forward to refreshing dip. I stopped for a beer at a local bar just before entering the White Castle and once I did I was told,

“I’m sorry Sir but dawa has been added to the swimming pool water. Come back at 2pm it should be fine by then.”

I killed time with another bottle of Pilsner and a game of pool at the bar and returned at 2.

“The water is still somehow cloudy but I am sure it will be clear for swimming tomorrow.” I was told this time.

Leaving again through the White Castle gates I was almost immediately greeted by a woman who’d spoken to me as I entered the bar before going for a ‘swim’. She was going for a drink herself now at a place near the hotel gates that sells local spirit. I’d seen the stick with a plastic bag tied to the top stuck into the ground by the side of the road that led to the hotel, and just like a pub sign it indicates that spirit is being sold. So feeling dejected after not having a swim I didn’t take much persuading to accompany her for a drink.

Juliet my new drinking partner and I joined two male customers and a woman, the owner cum distiller in the shade of her hut and I was offered a glassful of the local tipple they called nguli. It was surprisingly smooth.

I bought a bottle (which was dirt cheap), a glass was filled, and it was then passed around the five of us. That bottle finished I offered to buy another and was invited into the hut where the bottle was filled from the dripping still.

I’m not usually a spirit drinker but I was having a fine old time and the nguli was going down nicely. My half-drunk buddies were telling me that they were not from this area originally and that the whole village were Alur and the community had been relocated at some time in the past from Bunyoro.

“You probably know more Lugbara language than I do” Juliet told me. She then ordered a bottle for us all.

I was having a right laugh and things were getting noisier. An upturned jerry-can was now being used as a drum by Peter one of the customers, the jerry –can was then passed around the drinkers as we tried to keep the rhythm going. It was passed to me and standing up, jerry-can in hand Idrummed my way to the distilling hut got yet another refill of nguli and returned to the benches in the shade to the sound of ululating and shouts of “Oye!”

I was pleasantly surprised to find myself waking up to the familiar surroundings of my own hotel room in the morning. I’m not sure how much I’d eventually drunk the previous afternoon and evening and I only had vague memories of being helped onto a motorcycle taxi back to town. I was also surprised to find that I didn’t have the mother of all hangovers; I knew I’d had a drink but I actually didn’t feel too bad at all. I dressed and fumbled for change to buy a restorative breakfast and found a crumpled note in my pocket from Juliet that included her mobile phone number and a suggestion that we meet up again!

But it looks like Uganda!

After some serious negotiating with a guy in Arua market I eventually secured a battered old mountain bike to hire for the day. The bloke I was hiring it from was still a bit wary of renting the bike out; this was not a rental place but a stall that sold bikes on the market. He did seem somehow reassured when I gave him the phone number of my hotel.

Ediofe, south west of Arua was where I headed first where a ridiculously huge church had been built. I then moved on through the villages of Igirigiri, Bokea and into Ajono parish nearer to the Congo border. I was greeted many times along the road and I was asked by a teenage girl peddling an Indian roadster where I was going.

“I want to see what Congo looks like.” I told her

“But it looks like Uganda.” she told me.

As we road together down the road she told me that one side of the road was the Democratic Republic of Congo, the road itself was in Uganda.

Truth be told, I was a bit disappointed; I was hoping to see some obvious signs that this was Congo but there was no border post or anything written in French there was just a parched field like many I had already passed. I asked her if the road continued to Arua or would I have to take a turn.

“In two kilometres you branch from the trading centre. Even me I’m going to the junction.” She told me, so we road together to the small trading centre, where I stopped to buy a Pepsi and after much persuasion my new cycling partner accepted a bottle of Morning Due. After chatting over the soda we both left but with typical Ugandan kind-heartedness and manners she cycled a short distance down the road back to Arua or as she called it “I will give you a push.”

We shook hands, she turned her bike around and she headed back along the border road; lovely girl. She had told me earlier about smugglers who shuffle small goods across the border here and as we separated three cyclists passed me with their bikes piled high with cardboard boxes of what looked like soap, sugar and boxes matches.

“Could you take all this load to Arua?” They questioned me and my cycling ability as their heavily weighted bikes took them down hill and away from me. I’m pretty sure that that was a challenge to me of a race back to town.

I gladly took up that challenge and stood up on my pedals but my battered rented mountain bike’s front derailleurwould not shift at all so my little legs were pedaling cartoon-like as I was firmly stuck in the granny wheel. I soon passed the eldest of the three cyclists who was taking up the rear and within the next kilometer or so I overtook the second smuggler on a bend. The leading smuggler was a long way ahead but once he was in my sights I could see him looking over his shoulder, this really was a race into town and he was determined not to let me pass. The road wound down hill and although I didn’t have the wait advantage of a piled high push bike I did have the advantage of being able to get into a tuck position with my chest almost flat on the handle bars. I gained on him and eventually as the dried mud track crossed a bridged stream I took the front smuggler on the inside and I could hear that he was laughing as much as I was. I powered on and only at the junction to the main road did I turn around to see that he was not giving up. The last kilometer was a breeze on the tarmac as I sped into town and pulled up at my favourite bar for a couple of beers to cut the dust.

Split knees and swimming pools

Learning my lesson from the previous visit to White Castle Hotel and not fancying another 6k long walk I jumped on a boda (motorcycle taxi) to get to the pool for a swim. We had just left town and were navigating the large roundabout south of town but whilst leaving the roundabout the driver of the car in front slammed on the brakes instead of accelerating out of the roundabout. My boda driver did his best to avoid hitting the back-end of the car full-on but only managed to clip his handlebar on the rear wing splitting his little finger in two as my knee hit the back light smashing its glass and slicing the skin over my knee which then peeled back like the skin of an orange exposing the white of the bone underneath. The driver of the car happened to be a nun and true to her Christian spirit she tried her best to flee the scene of the accident but thankfully she was prevented from doing so by a group of boda drivers who’s boda station the accident all happened in front of. These lads seeing that the Christian fuckwit had caused the accident, prevented her from driving off and insisted that she drive my injured driver and myself to the hospital telling her which one to go to.

“Not the public hospital, you caused the accident so you should pay for their treatment.” They told the god-botherer. Good lads!

The medical staff at the hospital were great and as my knee was being stitched back together by a Congolese Doctor the nun did a runner and was never seen again leaving the unpaid bill behind.

I needed cheering up, so leaving the hospital I thought it wise to hop on a bicycle boda boda instead of the motorised variety and headed to Shiva Praya and had a slap up paneer bhurj with a garlic naan and a couple of bottles of beer. Not surprisingly I had a quiet night after the day I’ve just had.

The next day there was only one place I wanted to go to and neither dawa nor a reckless nun was going to prevent me from going to the swimming pool at White Castle. But what with a knee sown back together with a dozen stitches and being under strict doctor’s orders to keep it dry I all the same managed to have a pleasant few hours there where I worked out I could lay on my back in the kiddie’s pool with most of body submerged and only leaving my stitched up knee and lower left leg out of the water flat on the concrete tiled edge of the swimming pool.

I now had to stay in Arua for the next five days or so waiting for the wound to heal and then for my stitches to be removed at the hospital. I returned to get a couple of bandage changes over the next few days but keen to get back to Kampala I bought a ticket for the 8 o’clock bus back to the capital a few days later. So at around 6:30 of the morning of my departure I was having my stitches removed by a nurse while I watched an old chap clean the room. He had swept the floor and then he brought his attention to the rubbish. He tipped one full waste bin into another until it was almost overflowing, not a problem; he pushed the medical waste including bloody sharps down with his wellington booted feet eventually standing up in the bin. I truly feared for his health and could only think what would happen if any of those blood-stained sharps pierced his boots.

Stitches removed I returning to my hotel, grabbed my bags and walked to the Gaagaa bus office where my Kampala bound bus awaited.

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Photos

My Arua cycle buddy
....and yeah, it does look like Uganda!

White Castle Hotel
Keeping my wound dry