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Published: October 21st 2008
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I realize I have been posting but not really actually on anything I have been doing here in Uganda. So I'm going to be lazy and do this:
I go to Jinja on the spur after spending the morning marching in the Ugandan Independence Day Parade for the President at the local airstrip with Sam, who I had met about thirty minutes ago having breakfast at the hostel. Sam is 26, from Manchester, and teaches mathematics although he looks as far as you can get from a math teacher. He is also as tan as you can get for a Mzungu - he claims he has Indian blood but I think he is a big fat liar. Sam is travelling with his friend Mike, 25 and also British but has a shaved head which leads him to look a bit like a southern skinhead. ·To be honest when I first meet the pair I dismiss them as a couple of in-your-face, crass Brits - you know, the annoying kinds at the pubs. First impressions prove to be deceiving though, and soon we bond over the fact that all of us have been mugged in Africa: myself at gunpoint in South
Africa, and them at machete-point (yes, machete) in Tanzania.
But Mike isn't marching in said parade with us. This is because the security at the airstrip doesn't allow any cameras into the celebration, so Mike and Sam decide to take turns going in to check it out. I hadn't bothered bringing my camera, still mourning the loss of my SLR. Sam happens to come in with me on the first "rotation," and soon the two of us find ourselves marching in a very strange color-coded procession with a local university group. A ten minute rotation turns into about an hour, and by the time we escape the (unfortunately boring) parade, Mike is fuming outside.
Back at the hostel I am convinced to go with Mike and Sam, along with a group of four Aussies (traveling separately but somehow have colluded, big surprise) to do some gnarly white-water rafting at the source of the Nile at Bujagali Falls outside of the town Jinja to the east of Uganda. They are leaving in 2 hours. Now I have never really been into white-water rafting, probably because it never gives me THAT big of a thrill, but I decide to go
because I don't particularly have any plans anyways and the group seems nice. The Aussies consist of 1) Dave, 25, who is actually from Tasmania, really blonde, and works in finance (and had been robbed of sixty thousand shillings at the parade, went to the police station and had ridiculous stories to tell about what he saw in the jails); 2) Ben, 23, from Melbourne, is absolutely hilarious, and in addition to already getting malaria is also currently infected with some sort of tropical blood disease that starts with a "B" - is not balzharia or whatever the worm thing is called; 3) Kylie, 28, from Melbourne and is the absolute most relaxed, chilled out female I think I have ever met; 4) Camille, 22, from Melbourne as well and is sort of a goody-goody control freak, but in the best way possible. Kylie and Camille have spent a couple months volunteering in Kenya on some ecotourism project and are now on holidays.
Now as for rafting the Nile, here is the lowdown since I know some people reading are into this big-time, *cough*Sturman.* One full day of something like four class-5, three class-4, and five class-3 rapids (I
hope I remembered that more or less correctly) runs you USD125, but a second day runs only USD55. The rapids in the morning lay on one side of some proposed dam that is to be constructed by next year, thus eliminating all the rapids of the morning (so get here, fast.) You go off in the am with groups on the rafts along with safety kayakers, all local Ugandans who are totally ripped and do amazing stunts in their one-man kayaks while floating down the river with you the whole day. I mean, they get paid for this and all I think they do is try to hook up with foreign chicks the entire day while flexing their perfect bodies in the sun. I don't really know anything about kayaking, but apparently rafting at Bujagali Falls is flipping up there sweet, in Africa only comparable to rafting on the Zambezi. Our Aussie guide says that it had to be some of the absolute best he has every done, and he isn't saying this because he currently works here. So all in all, the rafting was pretty good and I was contemplating bungee-jumping up there as well until somebody told me
the guys who run that operation can't be trusted. Pass.
We stay at a backpackers place up at actual Bujagali where the night scene was fun at first and then just got really loud and monotonous. Boy, am I tired of overland trucks. Is anybody with me on this? For those of you who haven't traveled in Africa, these overland trucks are large vehicles that usually bring about 30-40 people, normally of all the same nationality, around certain routes through the continent hitting all the bit tourist spots. And when they come they are fun at first, but then they get loud, and then they get annoying because you meet the same person over and over and over about 40 times throughout the night. Oh yeah, and if your hostel has overland truck business you can bet that the showers are always full and the toilets always overrun. So we meet some people, play some cards, people find really weak Ugandan weed, Brazilians approach me clamoring in Portugese only to discover that I am not, in fact, Brazilian.
Post-Jinja:
- I snap up the opportunity to head back to Kampala with Dave to catch Uganda play Benin
in a World Cup qualifier. We get, of course, completely decked out in Uganda gear and I am given a free whistle which I will abuse for weeks after. Uganda wins, happy days, we get a lot of free stuff as we stroll around as clear Uganda supporters. Dave and I get to know each other better, but not in a sexual way because it is now that I learn that Dave is a huge man-whore as I sit and watch him get with new girls at every change of scene. Dave is great.
- Every Monday in Kampala local musicians gather at the National Theater for a jam session. These are free and known to be a really good time. Dave and I go to check it out and learn the movements of a Ugandan pickpocketer. After getting robbed at the parade, Dave has been super sensitive to any accidental touching near his pockets. This is how we suss out a potential working pickpocket, and we spend the rest of the night high-fiving rastas, drinking Nile, and staring down a really ugly local. Ugly Local moves about the room constantly and doesn't spend much time standing in the
same place. Ugly Local eyes every Mzungu that walks through the door and immediately places himself in said Mzungu's vacinity, usually standing directly behind at a really awkwardly romantic angle. He does not watch the musician or dance with the music, but instead has his eyes constantly glued on others' hand movements and pockets. I had a fun time moving around when Ugly Local had his sights on me.
I lack the energy or creativity to think any more right now. Sorry for the lameness of this entry, but this is to prove that I am actually doing things in Africa instead of just sitting around hating on South Africa and American NGO workers.
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