Final Adventure

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I woke at 4am to make the first Kalita bus at 5. After finishing some last minute packing, making a final sweep, and then taking a second to soak in one last look at the place that had been home for the last three months, I rushed to the first round-about in town. The spot being the designated location of departures for the Kalitas. Of course I wasn’t surprised to find that no one else had done the same. At 5:10 there was still only two other people accompanying me on the idling bus, a young mother and her baby. She seemed to be just annoyed as I that we were somehow duped into showing up early. You will never find an empty seat on a Kalita, therefore, the bus didn’t fill up nor depart before 6. I pulled out of Fort Portal for the last time. Arriving in Kampala I made my way to the Hotel Annex. Once again, put off by the offensive customer service, and perhaps just a bit grumpy from the lack of sleep, I announced to the staff that I would “never come back to this hotel.” Which is true I guess. I set my bags in my room and then went back to the new bus park to grab a Matatu to Jinja. Finding the right one in the ocean of honking white minibuses is a difficult task but I was on a mission and I didn’t have a lot of time. The new bus park is the heart of town and is the size of two city blocks that are literally packed bumper to bumper with Matatus awaiting riders. Often times you might wait an hour for your minibus to fill up and then have to wait another hour for the bus to inch its way out of the park. Thankfully, once outside of Kampala the road is well paved which makes for a quick two hour drive. I arrived in Jinja covered in baby’s vomit and ready for the trip to be over. I quickly grabbed a Bodaboda and tried to explain that I wanted to go to the place along the Nile where there was a statue of Gandhi. “Yes, rafting,” he said. Jinja is famous for its world-class rapids, it not only offers some of the best white water rafting in Africa, but the world. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time or the shillings to include this in my plans. It’s other claim to fame is that the Nile starts its long journey here, running all the way to Egypt. “No, do you know the statue of G-a-n-d-h-i? Statue - Indian - do you know?” I aksed again pointing to my forehead indicated an Indian person. “Yes, I know,” assured the Boda driver. We proceeded to drive around for the next half hour obviously lost. My patience had run out. Time after time I have been guaranteed by boda drivers that they knew where my destination was just to get me on their bike then ask me if I knew where it was after driving aimlessly around for some time. I like to think I have an endless tolerance for miscommunications due to language or cultural differences but this practice is simply deceitful and I utterly resent it. I jump off the bike at a red light, handed the driver half fare and walked away. Worried about time I found another boda driver only to be faced with the exact same set of events. Fuming, I give up on finding the statue and walked to an official plague for the source of the Nile. The spot is not surprisingly over commercialized, and even sponsored by a local brewing company. Despite the beer ads and long line of tourist shops along the path to the water, they still charge you 10,000 USH to enter the area. However, when I got to the riverside I was over joyed to find the statue I was searching for right there. This was the spot they had spread a portion of Gandhi’s ashes after he was cremated, and this too was the spot I would also spread a portion of my grandmothers ashes. I said a prayer and poured the ashes into the Nile. I sat by the water for some time thinking about how she had made this adventure possible for me. I sat thinking about all the wonderful adventures Judy had also had in her life and I thought about the final adventure she has ahead of her, now part of the Nile winding it’s way through Africa.

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Comments

[beebwa]

Ghandi
It was your mistake. You should have instructed the boda boda man to take you to the Source of the Nile. That`s how it`s generally known. Originally, there were 2 massive falls, Ripon Falls (where the Gandhi Monument is) and the Owen Falls (whre the Dam is). They tried to build the dam at Ripon Falls, but abandoned the idea because the water velocity was too high, so they built the dam downstream, at Owen Falls, hence Owen Falls Dam

[William Driscoll]

re:beebwa: Ghandi
Had I known this my day would have been considerable easier...