“The cheque’s in the post ….” apparently
How you deal with a trip to Kampala Road Post Office is a good indicator of how you’re getting to grips with life in Uganda.
My weekly disappointment. Isn’t a postbox supposed to contain letters? Postboxes at Kampala Road Post Office
Off to the Post Office in the morning to see whether I have any birthday cards (29th September). I have absolutely no illusions about getting any cards or letters (even though I know some have been posted!) Any I do receive will be a bonus with bloody bells on. Here’s how my trips to the post office go:
Kampala Road Post Office WEEK 1: slight disappointment
“Where’s the letter I’m expecting? Oh well, post must take a while to get to Uganda from the UK …”
Kampala Road Post Office WEEK 2: resigned disappointment
“VSO have told me to learn to be patient, so I must be. At least I have some post to look forward to when I come next week.”
Kampala Road Post Office WEEK 3: real disappointment
“What?! I don’t believe it. It’s taken me nearly an hour to get here and still nothing in the postbox.”
Kampala Road Post Office WEEK 4: real disappointment
“For God’s sake, this is starting to annoy me! Dad’s going to be so disappointed I haven’t received his letters.”
Kampala Road Post Office WEEK 5: frustration
“Bollocks. I forgot the post box key.”
Kampala Road Post Office WEEK 6: excitement
“I just know there’s definitely something in there for me!”
Kampala Road Post Office WEEK 7: anticipation .. followed by confusion .. followed by disappointment
“But …? Damn I should have known … oh well, it’ll turn up eventually.”
A very happy volunteer. Isla opens welcome post – and chocolate!! – sent from friends in the UK
Well I gave up checking the Kampala Road post box months ago but some tips are:
- Write URGENT: EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS on the package
- Write “with God’s speed” or similar (apparently this works!)
- Ask me when I next have someone coming over from the UK (nowhere near as much fun but success guaranteed!)
- The best mail address for me is c/o VSO (VSO staff apparently check the post box every day and I can walk up the hill to collect it rather than go into the – only – post office in town).
- OK just send me an email then!
“Not for dumping” SNIGGER. The box for incorrectly addressed mail inside Kampala Road Post Office Uganda
Birthdays often engender a bit of navel-gazing.
As I settle into my new life in Uganda, find myself asking:
- Would I have been happier living in a mud hut in the forest with no electricity and no running water?
- Do I really want to play netball ever again? A friend talked me into joining a team at a local community centre. (I was crap first time around).
- Why did I buy a tortoise?
See you soon for the answers to some of those questions.
Are you new to Uganda? Read Uganda for beginners – an introduction for new expats.
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My ‘new’ new life
A: a mzungu with a dog!
I feel I’ve been out of touch recently, suffice to say things are very definitely on the up, after a difficult couple of months. Delighted to report:
• I have a dog!
• Making headway at work & getting on really well with Patrick and Enid (office staff) and Eva (house girl). 
• Simpson (our gate boy) – who has his very own bullet point because he’s my best Ugandan friend – has started university. I’m so proud of him but I miss hearing his happy voice around the compound during the day. [PICTURED: Simpson studying outside his room]
• The knee held up! I had 50+ people round for a big BBQ and dancing till 4am this Saturday. The great thing about VSOs is they’re all happy to chip in. “Best party I’ve been to in Kampala” Jo said and she knows how to party! Jo was my dance partner at Africa Hash and we love S Club 7. We’re both over 40 and We Have No Shame.
Out of town …Kampala riots far away
It’s ever hot in Kasese as we check on the ex-poachers clearing papyrus on Lake George to make way for the new marine ranger station
I woke to the sound of birds (and possibly a baboon!) this morning at the Uganda Wildlife Authority hostel on the Mweya peninsula in Queen Elizabeth National Park. A fantastically beautiful place tho the accommodation is very basic: only 1 tap works, the curtains don’t close and there are no hangers on the rail. But boy was the bed comfy!
An 8 hr journey from Kampala – and I’d slept for 3 hours of that – but still slept like a log in Mweya.
Just killing time in an internet café in Kasese – it’s always very hot here – while we try and get in contact with the company who are transporting our converted shipping container to Kahendero on Lake George. This is the site for our latest Marine Ranger Station and last week my UCF colleague Patrick was on site overseeing a team of 25 ex-poachers cut back 1200 square metres of Hippo Grass and Papyrus (much of it 2 metres high) along the Lake edge. It’s very tough work, all done by hand, but the men were disappointed the work came to an end. There’s not much round here apart from fishing and cattle grazing (often within in the Park and therefore illegal too). The cement company Hima is a big (and controversial) local employer.
This large catfish was an unexpected bonus for the team of ex-poachers clearing the papyrus on Lake George. The fish was divided between the labourers and taken home for dinner
The villagers at Kahendero are naturally suspicious – many of them are fishing illegally (using undersize nets, fishing outside designated areas etc) – as we roll up with UWA rangers. This is essentially a subsistence community but because of their location on the Park edge, they receive 20% of Park revenues to spend on business investment, income generation and so on. Each community decides where the money is spent and this is managed by UWA who also spend time ‘sensitising’ the community on conservation issues.
Ex-poachers clearing papyrus Lake George PHOTO UCF
People have to live and we recognise many depend on the land for grazing and Lake George for fishing but it has to be done sustainably and currently it’s not. By restricting certain activities we are actually giving them more control over their futures.
Hippo footprint outside the boat station, Northern Lake George
So where is the shipping container? And what is it for?
Converted shipping containers are regularly used for storage e.g. VSO has one in their compound in Muyenga. We’ve had windows and a door fitted to ours to make a secure storage unit for the boat. This – along with a week long life-saving and boat handling training programme – equips UWA to intercept and arrest poachers on the Lake and rescue fishermen (many of whom can’t swim). Kahendero is UCF’s 5th such set-up but is strategically placed on the north of Lake George, an area of high illegal activity, so possibly the most sensitive.
About the riots…
It all kicked off yesterday in Kampala.
First msg I got when mobile network back on was from VSO Emergency number: “Riots in Kampala. Please avoid town.”
The Kabaka (King) of the Baganda tribe was advised by the government not to visit a certain area for fear of starting a fight. Govt was damned if it did interfere, damned if it didn’t – so I understand. There were demos in town and the army was called in after a policemen was killed. Several people have been injured, two (?) killed. It’s in a specific area of town (other side of the city, far from Namuwongo) in response to a particular issue so nothing to get unduly worried about.
A day in the life … species by species
Adjusting to my new life in Uganda – here’s my daily routine, one species at a time
“Greetings!” as we say in Uganda.
The view over my compound wall. Namuwongo ‘go down’ by railway Kampala
We may not have the same change of seasons here in Uganda as we do in Europe but the insects and other animal species don’t know that! They come and go in phases. If you’ve been reading my blog regularly you’ll have met:
- Mosquitoes and cockroaches – hell, but they do their own relentless thing all the year round!
- Flying ants with enormous wings
- Grasshoppers – or Nsenene – eat them or smoke them?
- Black Jumping Spiders – er… they’re black and they jump! Small and dead comical.
- Black ‘stumpy’ flies. A few millimetres long, they look like their wings have been clipped.
- Ants, o yes. And they’re still here.
- This week I’m noticing “Tim Burton’s” spiders – very thin scraggly long legs and tiny bodies. Proper name Golden Orb Spider.
Come back Ma, it only visited us once!
If you’ve ever wondered what my daily routine in Kampala is like, here we go, species by species:
My love-hate relationship with this beautiful bird was put to the test recently
I’m usually woken up by a Woodland Kingfisher …
In Uganda there are five or ten of every kind of bird… in the UK we have one species of starling and one species of kingfisher; in East Africa there are 15 types of kingfishers and 31 types of starling!
…or the ugly clack clack clack of the Hadada Ibises (Ibi?) – how can such a beautiful bird make such a bleeding racket? (And live in all that s**t come to mention it …?)
Marabou Stork, Mweya, Queen Elizabeth National Park
God forbid it’s an enormous (5ft / 1.5m) Marabou Stork flying overhead. They look so clumsy.
I throw open the curtains and out jumps a startled gecko.
Cock a doodle do… at 9 o’clock? The cockerel lives in the shanty town beyond the compound and likes to remind us VERY LOUDLY of his presence on an hourly basis.
As the day warms up a striking brown and bright blue Agama lizard wakes up and saunters along the top of the hedge. He’s ?? long, a mixture of beige and brown and the most vibrant blue. He’s a handsome fella.
Simpson killed another type of lizard (brown body with pale yellow and red belly). Simpson’s very intelligent but doesn’t know much about wildlife. He’s mad about his cows! (A pastoralist from the West, cows are a symbol of wealth and therefore highly valued). I told him off for killing the lizard. He was cornered on the toilet at the time (!) and he said he thought it was going to bite him. “Next time you come and get me” I said “and I’ll remove it for you.”
dead lizard Uganda – we nearly fell out over this one, I tell you!
As the heat of the day builds, we don’t see much other than the odd (but large and brightly coloured) dragonfly skimming past.
And when the insects get too much, I just have to remind myself that without all this food we wouldn’t have this amazing diversity of birds, one of my passions.
I do sometimes feel the Old Testament is being reenacted in my house!
That reminds me, toads (or frogs?), I often go to the sleep of them croaking very loudly after the rain.
At dusk the insects, birds and geckos reappear again. The geckos come out of their hiding spots, and stand sentry on the outside wall all night next to the security light. There are several in the house too. They TUT TUT at me loudly when I disturb them and I’m sorry that some were unwitting victims of the fumigation. They are my friends (we can forgive the fact I have black gecko droppings decorating my skirting boards!)
Not forgetting why I’m really here …
How is the muzungu managing life as a conservation volunteer?
There’s no point in pretending: I’m really behind with work and I’m not going to get it all done in the next hour it takes for Mike (UCF’s Founder) to drive from the airport.
Kati, time for a bit of blogging …
Kati is the Luganda word for so ….well .. then … etc… one of this week’s new words. Luganda is bloody difficult I don’t mind telling you. All the words are long and most of them start with K! It’s a Bantu language and so totally different from any European languages I’ve tried. Where as we would use five words to say ‘what do they call you?’ Luganda bungs the whole lot together: bakuyika?
Having an hour of tuition a week and, tho it’s hard, I have never had such a fantastic reaction when I open my mouth to say a few words: “but you’re so fluent!” people exclaim. Fact is few mzungu bother even learning the greetings (everyone speaks at least some English) and my phrases are very short! Not sure how far I’ll continue with Luganda (till VSO funding runs out probably!) but it’s a great insight.
For example, we asked how you say ‘bon appetit’ – you don’t. There is no equivalent phrase. You may enjoy your food but you just eat as much as you can! When you offer someone a biscuit, you’ll be lucky if you see the packet again – and this goes for professional people (i.e. those with money) as much as kids or wildlife rangers in the bush.
On our last field trip, I passed the biscuits around the car. I made the mistake of offering a ranger the packet (meaning he should take a couple of biscuits and pass the packet on). As he jumped out of the car, I noticed the big biscuit packet-shaped bulge in his jacket pocket ! (Rangers are on ridiculously low wages and are based in the middle of nowhere so you can’t blame them for trying it on). Even in town tho, it’s every man for himself when the food’s served and god do Ugandans pile the food on the plate.
I was offered the cutest puppy last week and still thinking about whether to have it (I have a home for it when I leave Uganda) but yesterday acquired – with VSO grant – new furniture so perhaps not a good combination! Have to do the maths and see if I can afford to feed a dog though.
Ivory poaching on the increase! How DNA is extracted from elephant dung to map ivory across Africa
Off to the field to visit the projects from Sunday. Unfortunately elephant dung is being collected without me! Had really been looking forward to the 3 day trip with the rangers across Murchison Falls National Park to collect and map elephant DNA but Patrick and I will be going to Queen Elizabeth – a ‘small’ 1978 km2 park – instead.
Very timely news on BBC yesterday saying the number of African elephants killed illegally for their ivory is rising steeply.
“Andrew Luck-Baker asks how science can stop the new upsurge in the slaughter of African elephants for the booming illegal international trade in ivory.”
You can listen to the show on the BBC here.
We are working with Dr Sam Wasser (interviewed) and it’s a superb project – to map ivory via dung analysis so poaching locations and smuggling routes can be tackled. Not only is this a great project in itself but it’s great for UCF’s profile to be associated with it.
Ants in my pants
It’s been building for a fortnight: a column of tiny black ants marching up and down the tiles behind the toilet cistern, 24 hours a day, the dotted black line slowly becoming a solid black line.
Yesterday I noticed ants on my toothbrush. This morning a big trail of them was marching up outside the house straight from underneath the drain cover – “and we all remember what was under there!”
From drain to toothbrush = NOT GOOD!
Simpson said he didn’t have any ants in his room this morning, but this evening he borrowed the ant powder. Just walked into the bathroom and there’s over a hundred of them running the length of the bath into my toiletries bag. It’s full of them, eating what: plasters? eye shadow? or cream for insect bites? (that’d be ironic!)
We’ve had everything else, now apparently it’s Ant Season! (I won’t be seeing you next July then Ana!! Ana – in Portugal – can’t stand ants).
“Michael Jackson is dead” notice on one of the many blackboards that line exterior walls of Ggaba teacher training college. Few schools have electricity / PCs / overhead projectors so trainee teachers have to practice writing with chalk on boards.
“MJ is dead.” Michael Jackson is dead. School blackboard in Ggaba, Kampala
Seems my Ugandan running career is prematurely over. My knee injury (slight tear to lateral minuscus), although not serious now, could be if I carry on running. Plans to run my first 10k in November are therefore unlikely.
- 2 months to get damp and rotten wardrobe seen to so I could unpack
- 4 months to get Outlook installed and running properly
So in scheme of things, 6 months recuperation for knee isn’t surprising … but having to deal with frustrations and delays in all areas of your life simultaneously is hard though.
Monday – Wednesday
- Colleagues both at a funeral (relative died of a snakebite, a Puff Adder. He lived in countryside near Tanzania not Kampala!)
- Luganda lesson cancelled
- Mobile network down
While the cat’s away….
While the cat’s away… the rats play…
Apparently we don’t have mice in Uganda. Ugandan mice look like English rats, only a lot smaller … (so isn’t that a mouse then?!)
God I’m glad this work week’s over. My knee injury is not improving so I’m really feeling out of shape now. RSI (painful wrists) has been killing me (but I do have some more exercises to try); I’m torn between getting my projects done and spending time ‘leading and motivating’ the team (one of who is possibly leaving anyway…)
Have been struggling for weeks to finish a report to a donor, a project I’m not totally familiar with, colleagues who don’t give me the full picture and a template I’m having difficulty using. I feel like I’m the bottleneck for everything. We can’t submit next grant applications until reports are done and I can’t ‘share my skills’ with the team until I understand what I’M supposed to be doing! I’m still working on the 6 month work plan VSO have asked me to put together. Still, here is not the place to get stressed: you try and buck the system and it’ll fight back even harder.
Did I say something about wanting a challenge? Next time shoot me!
Success here is measured in much smaller ways, whether we like it or not. Sometimes we’re just lucky to have power and/or phone and internet; to get a cheque signed (by an elusive and busy director). Other days we’re lucky if everyone’s at work; people get sick more often (especially with malaria; in many cases it can be HIV-related) and burials of (extended) family members mean days off from work are very common indeed. This may be one explanation for Ugandans’ less than brilliant planning skills! It is quite normal to have just a day’s notice for an important meeting. A friend was booked on a three day training course the night before it started.
I just hope next Monday is better than this week’s. This is a note I wrote to one of our volunteer colleagues in the UK:
“I came home from the field trip to find a quarter of my treasured olive oil had gone (no-one’s been cooking) and some of the honey gone too (you know how expensive that is here). Now I’m thinking about it, we seem to get thru sugar and instant coffee at a ridiculous rate of knots too. Finding another job advert torn up in the office bin didn’t help my mood either when I got back)….
UCF have asked me to pay for all the office tea, coffee sugar, etc, cleaning products, lightbulbs, candles etc. They pay Rose’s wages and the utility bills so it’s only fair – I just wish they’d mentioned it before now as I’d have kept a closer eye on what people are using… I’m a bit concerned about buying detergents, tea/coffee etc. It’s not a lot of money but Rose always ‘helps herself’ to these items and I cannot help but take it personally if I am the one paying for it! It is of course no better if she’s stealing from UCF but I don’t take it so personally. I stopped buying liquid detergent as I noticed she had taken half the bottle home as soon as I bought it.
Ugandan fruit and vegetables are tasty and often huge! Cheap too.
I’m happy to help Rose with unlimited matooke (green bananas) and sweet bananas (!) while she’s at work. I brought her back a pineapple from our trip but ‘helping herself’ to what I see as my personal food really puts my back up. I offered her a headache tablet last week and when I asked where the rest of the packet was, she produced it from her handbag. I said ‘I’d prefer if you ask before you take things’, she said ‘I would ask you first’. Well evidence is to the contrary isn’t it?
The good thing is having previous VSO volunteers in the UK I can let off steam to.
Off to the field
Tuesday night is market night and the drums are playing loud on the other side of the compound wall, just a few metres away.
Our friendship was sealed when I discovered he’s not afraid of cockroaches!
This week we will be:
Visiting Bukorwe Ridge Elephant Trench in Ishasha, which measures a whopping 10 km long x 2m wide x 2m deep, created to stop elephants crop raiding villages. UCF secured the funding to excavate the trenches and the community are supposed to maintain them, but they don’t really. They want money to do it and there simply isn’t any. We operate on a shoestring, their lives have been significantly improved by the trenches but commitment is very difficult. Kikarara is very rural and poor. It’s a subsistence culture. Their village has no vehicles, not even any motorbikes and the last part of our journey takes us down windy footpaths across field after field. It’s quite moving to visit somewhere so remote. The kids will go absolutely crazy when they see me, they never see mzungus.
Community sensitisation is a big part of UCF’s work, alongside the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Here on the edge of Lake George, the messages are anti-poaching (hippo) and warnings against fishing with undersized nets
Visiting UCF’s Waterways project on Lake George to decide where to locate our next ‘marine ranger station.’ UCF funds boats for UWA rangers to intercept poachers (mostly of hippo) and illegal fishermen. An added benefit to the community is that the boat has rescued people and boats in distress and even saved lives.
Two hands of bananas guide us on our Ugandan road trip
My colleague Patrick and I visited Kashaka, one of UCF’s marine ranger stations on Lake George. Here he is pictured with some of the fishermen’s children
As if all of this weren’t frustrating enough, blossoming ‘who knows what’ with Dutch hunk is put on hold!
Four months in Kampala and am I making a difference?
I’ve been in Uganda four months today
I realise I won’t be able to achieve anything like what I’d like to. I can still make an impact of course and I have already but mostly in the ‘softer issues,’ like showing Simpson (the gate boy) how to type and use email, educating Eva (the house girl) on all the sanitary uses of bleach (!) acting as a representative for the previous volunteer and his wife (handing a cash donation to Ggaba Primary School to help them build a nursery). All of these very simple things have given me an enormous amount of pleasure, perhaps because I didn’t anticipate them.
Because things have been quiet on the work project front, I haven’t had to deal with too much bureaucracy but on TV yesterday they said Uganda ranks 3rd in the world for corruption. I admit the frequent requests for money (+ jobs + sponsorship etc) do wear a bit thin. I had two schoolgirls follow me home last week, one of them insistent (in not a very nice manner) that I give her 200 shillings for sweets. (I gave her a firm ‘nedda’ – ‘no’). This persistence is quite unusual though.
The well-stocked Resource Room at the teacher training college contrasted sharply with the 20+ year old Gestetner copying machine (pictured) relied on by the primary school next door. The college uses papier mache for models and natural resources like banana leaves and lentils to make posters and teaching aids.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I am adjusting to life here and how to get the team motivated. Here’s one of the email exchanges I had with a previous volunteer who set up the finance and admin structure here. His comments are in green.
On Saturday mornings we have the house to ourselves. A breakfast of fried eggs on toast has become our ritual
“Living above the shop.” I feel very secure. Eva and Simpson look after me very well and I’m happy with the living arrangements although I was led to believe the office would be in the garage, not the house. People are generally respectful but I do find the African habit of leafing through your books and papers on your desk – or anywhere else – without asking very annoying!
Early successes – good feedback on the Trustees reports and the bid submission, improved comms with Uganda Wildlife Authority (our main partner) and the Directors – gave me false impression that it was going to be plain sailing from now on! (VSO advise you not to expect to achieve much in the first few months). Agreed. Motivating the team. To be fair, when things get busy Patrick and Enid both react but there’s very little to manage at project level currently. I try and liven them up every morning (trying out my latest Luganda word on them!) although ‘working from home’ can mean it’s hard to liven myself up some days, let alone other people. Patrick and Enid were to some extent demotivated when I arrived but I think the mood has picked up.
Grasshoppers – nsenene: eat them or smoke them? Discuss.
Grasshoppers “nsenene” – will you eat them or smoke them?
A storm had been brewing since an intensely hot morning and a few drops of rain spattered onto my new umbrella as I walked out of the Buganda Road restaurant.
Little did I know what I was heading into.
It was fun at first, stepping though the raindrops, tremendous cracks of thunder overhead but within a few steps it was ‘coming down stair rods’, a solid, vertical downpouring. I hung onto the umbrella hard but it only served to keep my head and bag dry(ish) as waves engulfed my feet and a strong wind – from nowhere – washed the sheets of hard rain against my body. Wet to the bone in seconds, continuing my walk was no longer an option. I stood beside a bright yellow vendor’s kiosk and screamed as water funnelled down the back of my T shirt.
Torrents of water gushed downhill and the previously busy streets emptied of all but the biggest 4x4s and the maddest matatu [minibus] drivers.
My shelter in the storm was one of many kiosks, this one – in the middle of Kampala – being a very modern fibreglass job where you can buy airtime and load money onto your phone. Most are a patchwork of wood, like a garden shed (only of less sound construction!)
I was wondering what to do when someone pushed open the flap at the front of the fiberglass cabin. A head poked out and shouted “Come in! Come this way!” above the din of the rain. I ran round the side of the booth and took refuge with a man and a lady in the dark metre-square box.
“Thank you for the shelter!” I screamed above the rain, and we laughed as Juma peeled off his shirt and wrung out a pint of water onto the floor.
As the rain pelted down, we spent the next twenty minutes in the dark, talking about the rainy season, Ugandan politics and the cultural differences such as food in Uganda, specifically in relation to eating grasshoppers, or nsenene in Luganda, currently in season.
I said I don’t eat grasshoppers because ‘silya enyama’ [I don’t eat meat] but apparently nsenene are not classed as meat.
“I try not to eat them any more” Juma mused, “even though I l like them.” He looked into the distance thoughtfully and spoke like someone trying to give up the fags.
In Kenya he said the same grasshoppers are collected and put on the fire, the smoke believed to keep ghosts away. An educated man, we agreed that eating dogs like the Chinese do wasn’t something we intended to try!
Do you eat Nsenene? Or do you prefer eating Enswa (white ants)?
“Living above the shop”
Many of us like the idea of working from home… what if work comes to you?
The past few weeks’ adventures have been great but hope I haven’t done all the best trips already?! Time to get on with some more work…
My first house. Namuwongo, Kampala. UCF team. Larking about in front of the house, taking photos for the company web site!
I have noticed that people aren’t proactive and will defer as much as they can until the last minute. I feel like a bloody nag and I hate it, it’s not my normal style. Hard enough to liven myself up some days especially since our boss is in the UK and very busy with his day job and we have infrequent contact. I live and work in the same building (house) too of course.
As for living and working in same location there are obvious pros and cons. Here it means I can arrive at work cool as a cucumber, not sweaty and covered in red dust! I can even take a shower in the middle of the day. When 5 o’clock (yes 5 o’clock!!) comes, I’m already home but it doesn’t mean I’ve left work behind…
The lounge / diner. My bedroom’s to the right and the spare (office) bedroom is to the left
Personal project over the next few weeks is to create a more personal living space. Everyone walks in and out through the lounge / dining area. First couple of weeks, people were flicking through my books, leaving them here, there and everywhere – I can’t stand that – so I retreated with my things into my bedroom, not wanting a confrontation. Now I know everyone better I’m going to reclaim my space!
Ugandans generally will pick up things and look at them, they don’t have this ‘do you mind if I take a look?’ approach us overly polite British have. With so many people living in very small homes, my guess is that Ugandans haven’t had the chance to adopt the possessive / protective tendencies us mzungus have. When I buy something new for the kitchen Eva and Simpson thank me. And I feel awful. Inside I’m thinking hands off it’s mine I’ve bought it for my kitchen! But they are so open and genuinely appreciative of every small thing I do or buy, it’s so humbling. We came back from Mt Elgon hike with an unopened tin of drinking chocolate. I knew Eva would like it and she was over the moon when I offered it to her. When she saw it was Cadbury’s – the real thing – she went crazy, grabbed hold of my hand and shook it!
Eva was very excited when a harvest of avocados dropped into our compound!
It’s hard to be angry or resentful towards anyone here for long. Eva had a long face just now so I cut her off a chunk of pumpkin to take home; she’s beaming from ear to ear now.
A bumper avocado tree harvest
The fruit were so heavy the branch CRACKED off the tree. We all went running outside. The thud of the fruit sounded like someone had fallen out of the tree. Eva collected fifty avocados that day.
So much time out of the office exploring Uganda – west to Lake Bunyonyi and east to Mbale and Mount Elgon – must partly explain why I’m finding it hard to get motivated at work. I have great chats with office staff Patrick and Enid but neither seem to have a lot of work on so I try and liven them up. Am I helping?
A girl called Kevin: climbing Mount Elgon, Uganda
A girl called Kevin: climbing Mount Elgon, Uganda
- Four days on foot
- 48 km covered
- A 3,000 metre climb
- Summit of Wagagai 4,321 m (14,177 ft) the 17th highest mountain in Africa
- First recorded ascent: 1911
- First recorded ascenders: Robert Stigler, Rudolf Kmunke
- – and a damaged knee ligament on day one!
Today I’m exhausted but elated after climbing Mount Elgon: one of the highest peaks in Uganda, with views – above the clouds – across to Kenya and northern Uganda. It really was breathtaking.
According to Wikipedia, Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya, north of Kisumu and west of Kitale. The mountain’s highest point, named “Wagagai”, is located entirely within the country of Uganda.
During our five day trek, we passed through numerous contrasting habitats: forest, bamboo, savannah, moorland, strange and eerie ‘moonscapes’ – Mount Elgon was once higher than Kilimanjaro – then back down a steep 1000 metre drop looking out onto valleys that reminded me of the foothills of the Alps …
This evening I received a lovely text from my special VSO volunteer friend Isla that sums it all up:
“Hope all went well at hospital. Will forever be impressed by your resilience. You are hard core. So glad we did it. I loved it.”
AHEM.
Hospital, yes.
Ultrasound treatment for the torn knee ligament (I can’t Hash or do aerobics for six weeks) and antibiotics for two small toes that look like they want to explode.
Actually I feel fine (I’m sitting down!) although I will have to go easy on the bananas and Waragi (local gin) for next six weeks.
What a bore.
Yet, it’s amazing how quickly you can forget the truly awful times isn’t it?!
I can even find myself saying I’d climb Mount Elgon all over again, despite the terrible, miserable cold and lack of sleep for two of the nights (we were camping); the 6 am wake-up call every day; the times (hours!) when you just have to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and the sheer yucky squelchiness of it all!
Perhaps we shouldn’t have climbed during the rainy season?! Hmmm!
My first afternoon and evening were hell.
Climbing Mount Elgon was easy enough but going downhill – the terrain undulates all the way – was agony and I finished day one with tears streaming down my face, so far behind everyone else that Patrick (the UWA ranger) and I limped to camp, just the two of us walking in total darkness on the mountain for the last hour.
Patrick led me down the hillside a step at a time, moving forward three steps then stopping to turn around and shine the torch at the ground in front of me, so I could ease myself downhill.
“Step here – then here – then here,” he guided me. “Mpola mpola,” he said. Slowly by slowly… what a lovely gentle man he was.
If you’re offered bamboo walking sticks – TAKE THEM!
It was another UWA ranger – Bernard’s – turn to accompany me hobbling down from the summit. Walking was easier thanks to two bamboo sticks cut down for us on the ascent; regular leg massages from one of my male friends (every cloud has a silver lining …) and walking with my left leg stuck out at an awkward straight angle, as if I was wearing a plaster cast.
I developed altitude sickness (nausea and a headache) on the way back down from the summit of Wagagai, and got sunburned. We all did. I think we were all so relieved to dry off after all that soggy weather that we stupid Bazungu forgot to protect ourselves from the high altitude sunshine.
Bernard fashioned some protection for my sunburned hands from big green plant fronds so I walked (limped!) into camp on the last day looking like an extra from Dr. Who!
Kevin held her own effortlessly amongst 9 men (7 of them porters) for four days (they all huddled close and slept round an open fire every night). What a great role model she is. Kevin works for UWA (Uganda Wildlife Authority), and is the youngest of 24 children! (Did her parents run out of girl’s names perhaps?)
If you’re in the area, allow another day or two to explore Sipi Falls, a series of waterfalls. This is the most dramatic waterfall.
Back home in Kampala, I just had time to unload the car before the power went off. After five days waiting for a hot shower, it was a cold shower by candlelight for me!
Climbing Mount Elgon is a terrific experience.
You will bump into few other hikers; I loved the challenge and I loved being away from it all (the knee injury on day one was just bad luck!) As we passed through the forest on the climb uphill, we watched Hornbills and Dusky Blue Flycatchers; in fact some visitors visit Elgon’s foothills just for the birdlife. In 2013, the birders from Mt. Elgon National Park won the annual Big Birding Day 24-hour competition.
To climb Mount Elgon you will need to pay park entry fees for Mount Elgon National Park. This will include two (or possibly more) rangers. Click here to download the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Tariff (price list) 2020 – 2022 which contains all Uganda’s National Park and Wildlife Reserve fees; hiking; gorilla, chimpanzee and golden monkey tracking permits; birdwatching, boat cruises; nature walks and more.
P.S. If you’re a runner, there is a new initiative to boost running and outdoor tourism in Kapchorwa. Visit the Run Kapchorwa website for more details.
Feel free to contact the Muzungu for more information about climbing Mount Elgon. Who knows? – maybe I will even come with you! A return climb is definitely overdue…
