On Uganda

So I have been tasked to write about Uganda, using my perspective as a non-Ugandan who until recently, two years past, resided in Uganda as well as the fact that I studied and worked in the East African nation. This is the fourth draft that I am penning and I hope I do not get to trash it at the end.

Why is it hard for me to write about Uganda? Well, for a start, I could fill entire volumes with experiences that range from the very unusual to the exceedingly mundane, experiences that meant a lot to me but will probably bore the reader into a coma. So cutting down is the word here, and like anyone on a diet will tell you, it’s HELL. Second, I would hate to turn into a sycophantic, over-excited travel brochure seller putting together a kumbaya-style Uganda/topia or even worse, minting cash from the very real misery of some of Uganda’s downtrodden. A just middle is what I hope to achieve. 

Bear in mind that this is one person’s limited perspective and one that is Kampala centric for the most part, at the end of the day i can only talk about what I know best. If you have been to Uganda, you will recognize and perhaps disagree with some of the facts and if you have not visited, this will hopefully make you want to go.

I have chosen, as a start, ten things to do while in Uganda, in no particular order. So I would recommend:

White water rafting

On the Nile. Let me say that again, the NILE! Everyone has to. It can be done within a day and I personally guarantee a thrill of epic proportions. I have done it three times and I cannot get over it still. It takes a day and it’s close to Kampala itself. The scenery is beautiful, the rafting outfits are professional and you get to see your toughest friends shriek for Mum to come and get them. Did I mention there is cold complementary beer in the bus that drives you back? That won me over.

Visiting a national park

How predictable! But yes, you are in Uganda so you might as well. You are spoilt for choice here as the country is peppered with parks and reserves that are as good as any that Tanzania and Kenya, the more famous neighbours have on offer. And they have glaciers too.

Party in Kampala

Where do I start? On offer you will have options including little unpretentious little friendly dives, huge bars that pack thousands, Über-posh lounges where everyone is terribly nice and loaded as well as clubs by the dozen. But why party in Kampala? Because Kampalans have successfully made it into an art form. When they say, let’s party, they mean business; no dead-fish allowed, better-drink-a-redbull-before-during-and-after business. And they are respectful too, and friendly. The musical selection is varied allowing for transitions between local music, the latest Beyonce song and Coldplay to happen within an hour. I am yet to meet a person who did not enjoy the party scene in Kampala, but that’s probably because they were at home sleeping.

Oh and dress up, these people take fashion seriously.

Go off the beaten path

Get out of town and away from the tourist traps. If you can go and stay with people, explore small towns and villages or just relax at a friend’s place in the suburbs, do it. Crash a party or two, Ugandans don’t mind, just bring a drink. You will find it very rewarding and you stand a chance of learning something that no tourist hotel will tell you. Go to Owino market and buy some second hand jeans, visit Makerere University or go to Mabira forest for a picnic (with sandwiches from Quality hill delicatessen.:-)

Eat Nsenene and ribs

The food is amazing. Kampala, especially, is a cosmopolitan city and you will find all manner of restaurants there and very good ones at that. But you must try Nsenene, the surprisingly nice tasting fried grasshoppers, that still have accusing eyes ogling you as you eat them. You must have a Rolex (rolled eggs), fast-food the Ugandan way consisting of a chapatti topped with an omelette and anything you fancy, from salad to minced meat, then rolled into a wrap.  You have to have matoke( mashed green bananas), with beans and rice and most of all you must go to a pork joint. The pork joint is a Ugandan institution, with a proud history of making the world a better place, one platter of ribs at a time, every day from five pm. They are packed, efficient little places that will serve pork meat done beautifully. You will literally pig-out.

Get on a BodaBoda

Avoid the traffic, jump on a motorbike taxi and get to anywhere you want. I once saw a very smart lady in a power suit step out of her parked Mercedes-Benz,  flag down a passing boda-boda and sit on it side-saddle a la Queen Elizabeth II,  all prim and proper and oh so very Kampalan.

Am I easily impressed or is that seriously cool?

Experience Entebbe

Get out of town for the weekend and go to the gentler, fairer, cleaner, greener sister city to Kampala. Forty kilometers away, the beaches are packed on the weekend, with shows often being staged. You must call into the botanical gardens, a massive place that combines jungle and manicured lawns where you are guaranteed to see more birds and monkeys than you will see people. True story!

Listen to the music

Ugandan people hail from different tribes and regions and cultures with very old and established musical traditions. A true kaleidoscope of influences and rythms that will not leave you disappointed. Go to Ndere center for the Sunday show, a true crash course in Ugandan traditional music, attend Jam session for a touch of Reggae at the Alliance Francaise of Kampala and download Mwooyo Kirya’s music for a taste of contemporary soul.

Plug into Kampala

There are discussion groups on the internet, run and attended by well-informed, learned, feisty people young and old alike. The pulse of the country can be felt through those groups, with politics, social issues, religion and the like are dissected, debated, fought over and agreed upon. There are poetry reading sessions, charity runs, goat races and more. The art scene is vibrant and diverse with internationally recognized personalities and all manner of upcoming artists…. If you are looking for an airbender, you will probably find one in Kampala.

Get involved with a community group (for real.)

Share something. If you have sometime in Uganda, get involved with a project, learn a skill or teach one or both.  Ugandans are fiercely proud people who react in two general ways to “charity”. The first way is by taking offence and being too polite to say anything. The second is by taking you for a ride; milking every single cent you are so willing to toss away and then some more. The Jesus-saviour complex is an easy trap to fall into and many have. If however you are humble enough to deal with people on an equal footing, giving as much as you are willing to receive, you’ll be part of a family, part of a concerted effort to move forward, in a way that no Aid Money can do.

 The truth, however, is that during your stay, Uganda can and will occasionally drive you to unparalleled depths of despair. Corruption is rampant, politicians fit for hanging, obscure beliefs and practices seem to get in the way of progress, intolerance is tolerated and there is the wounded past (Thanks Amin and Kony). Poverty is no myth, social inequalities shocking and SO MUCH REMAINS TO BE DONE. That said, you only need watch the news to realise that the DR Congo next door REALLY knows what corruption is about, that politics in Russia and America and South Africa (anywhere in the World really) are nothing but a dirty, cold and repugnant affair and then I sigh with relief when I remember that Pastor Terry Jones is not Ugandan (Praise the Lord!).

Looking back at my seven years, living, studying and working in Uganda, I realise this. Uganda is not perfect, never has been and probably never will be. That is not the point.  As my French teacher, Madame Christine, used to drum into us “La perfection n’est pas de ce monde”-Perfection is unearthly. If anything.

Uganda has issues, just like everybody else. And the redeeming feature in all this is, the Ugandan people. Survivors-extraordinaire, who somehow make it happen, come what may. A people who are hardworking, entrepreneurial and optimistic and proud and fun. A people who know that they have to keep trying again and again and again, until it works. Uganda is one of those places in the World where you open your eyes and realise today is better than yesterday and probably worse than tomorrow. It’s a place you can believe in. 

And that’s why I love Uganda. And I hope you do too.

Ancestral Plaster, Thrones and Mead

Ethiopia stuns me at every bend of the road, every vista, every occasion. I suppose a lot of my amazement with Ethiopia is due to my cluelessness about the country. While I have learnt quite a bit ever since my first visit, I am also aware of the depths of my ignorance. Aside from the very superficial and the very mythical, I knew nothing of the country.

The first visit to the country was short and busy, but still I managed to do what every self respecting tourist must do, by visiting Entoto Maryam (here), and then the next day after work, going to the national museum and having dinner in Yod Abyssinia

The national museum in Addis is a grand, greying old building that is home to artefacts from prehistoric times to modern day Ethiopia.

The most famous of  all those artefacts being Lucy, our 3.18 million years old ancestor, a female australopithecus afarensis, learn more about her here. In a room in what I remember being like a basement, in a glass coffin, laid against black cloth on a hard flat surface was our ancestor.

A range of emotions flooded over me; excitement (OMG, this is it, I am in the presence of history,...in the same room, staring at it in THE FACE!); Interior design rage (My Lord, the lighting is terrible, has the curator not read Snow White- you know, crystal coffin-a very well padded and comfortable looking casket that was, in a meadow, with the sunrays gently filtering through the leaves), Sadness( I mean this is our ancestor, and she is splayed with the indecency of human remains display that only museums know how to bring about) and a range of other mostly negative feelings. Sad really.

I made a silent prayer to her, to her and all the people who have trod the land before we did, to watch over me and those I love and to rest in peace. My Burundian catholic upbringing inferred (really just inferred) that pleas to departed ancestors were as potent as an Ave Maria, that there was no need to shed and discard our traditional spirituality, our link to what lies ahead, the comforting thought that we are beings made of the eternal stuff, that we will ALWAYS be here.

Watch over us Lucy.

And then, I read the plaque that said it was a plaster cast of the real thing. Crestfallen I was. I’m still cross. But I know she heard from wherever she is. Watch over us. Watch over us.

After that shattering disappointment, the visit continued through time, through the amazing journey that Ethiopia went through to become an empire. There is a room, an atrium really, with the crowns and robes and jewellery of the Negus, his family and his entourage. Even one of his thrones is there, a bulky wooden affair with a dusty red velvet cushion.

In his book the Emperor, Rysjard Kapucinski describes the life at court and in one particular instance the function of the pillow placer. The emperor being of a diminutive stature, the emperor’s feet would often not touch the ground when seated on a throne. The royal pillow placer’s job was to know which pillow, went with which pillow on what occasion. One mistake and the King of kings could be, at best in an uncomfortable position, at worst ridiculed. I cannot recommend that book enough,(link to a review here), an autopsy of regime collapse, autocracy, political science in a changing world. The room was sad and humbling, what with all the insignia of power and prestige, literally caged and contained, restricted and dead. The mighty have fallen and will still fall.

That evening, dinner was at Yod Abyssinia, a restaurant that has an Ethiopian food buffet (Injera complete with what seemed to me like twenty seven sauces). I think they still remember as the Burundian who ate until he couldn’t remember his name. Ethiopian food and restraint just don’t roll together. Not for me anyway and I know about twenty other people who can say the same. I pigged out with very nice St George’s beer with the food and a fragrant sweet mead that packed a punch, alcohol wise. I was surprised to find out that Burundi does a very similar drink, called "Akuki k'Abami", the drink of the Kings.  a drink as potent, with an uncanny ability to sneak the drunkedness into you before you know it ( ref; cousin Henry's engagement do..memorable).
Yod Abyssinia doubles as a show house complete with stage and performances from at least six different regions, all with the rytmic blend that Africa and arabia produced when they met.

I loved Ethiopia when I went to bed, pissed as an upright mattress and happy.

The french have a lovely expression to describe the state in which i woke up; "La tete dans le cul", to have one's head up one's own backside. That particular situation, we surely agree, is painful, very uncomfortable and it must blur all images and sounds while tasting and smelling very bad.

That day that shall be remembered as the one time that, I, a proud and outspoken coffee and chocolate hater, had two espressos that I downed like tequila shots, to clear the impenetrable fog of my hangover (I think coffee and chocolate taste and smell absolutely horrid, and makes you fat too..the chocolate that is. The work of lucifer).

It helped. Beans from the home of coffee were compressed into a bitter, powerful, minisized drink.

As much as I hate to admit but, it did help. And I've never looked back.

Kebabs on a bed of friendship

Travelling is like food in many ways. In my experience, both can be either improvised or carefully planned. They can be kept simple or extremely elaborate. Food, like travel, can leave you deeply satisfied or with the bitterest of after-tastes, swearing NEVER EVER to try that again owing. Food and travel, through the the multi-faceted experience they offer, have the magical ability to transport one through space and time, kicking imagination into overdrive and springing memories out of the dustier recesses of the mind. And when the whole experience is shared with someone, it is magnified, it's not food anymore, it's a meal; it's not a trip anymore, it's a voyage of discovery.

Some smells and tastes catapult me back into childhood whenever I encounter them, encasing me into a loving, safe homely cocoon. Succulent sweet fried plantain(Muzuzu, a cousin of mine can potentially inflict GBH over the smallest piece), Chicken Moambe stewed in palm fruit juice a la Congolaise, homemade mayonnaise with crispy frites, vanilla pudding, Dad’s succulent cotelettes de porc.....I could go on for hours.

It isn’t just the food it’s the experience of sharing the meal  I can still hear their kind admonishments whenever I made a mess -
Dad: “Non, mais...est ce que tu dois toujours manger comme un cochon?” which loosely translates as “Sharing a table with you is like watching a pig eat!”- or for non-observance of Mum’s rather strict table etiquette;
Mum: “Space for a cat between you and the back of the chair, sit up straight, no slouching, no elbows on the table and the metallic things either side of the plate are cutlery, not toys, not weapons, not useless decorations but CUTELRY And finish your food, tu as toujours les yeux plus gros que le ventre....do you know how many little kids are starving out there?”

My sister rather intelligently asked why we couldn’t take it to them. I remember my siblings’ sneaky attempts to get the last piece of plantain from one another’s plate.
Lazy sunday afternoon babercues, potlucks at uni, I remember the food because I remember the meal and the people.

My travel experiences are forever imprinted because I have had the blessing of sharing them with extremely interesting and kind individuals, and I say interesting and kind because I have come across individuals with the personality of a depressed amoeba and dangling icicles for a heart. Of the good ones, some I have known for years, others I met on the road and a good number have hosted me; opening the doors to their homes and making me part of their families, sharing their countries and cultures. Most of them, I will know for as long as we both live. The most amazing sights I have beheld carry heavier meaning because a travelling companion made an insightful- or phenomenally funny-remark that has cemented that moment into my head.

Which brings me to an amazing journey and the amazing people who I shared it with. In the winter of 2008, I was in Pakistan . Not bustling Karachi, not sleek Islamabad, but Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, a mere ten kilometres from the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan. We are talking about a place that is competing with Mogadishu, some back alley in a drug-cartel-owned neighbourhood of Mexico and a small mosque in Sarah-Palin-vote-country, for the title of “Most dangerous place on Earth ever EVER EVER”. . Two friends of mine, Qash and Yaqub, took me around Peshawar, Islamabad and the Indus Valley in Pakistan. Qash is a big gangly guy who looks much younger than his twenty three years while Yaqub is a shorter sort with a thin wiry body and the face mischief would have if it had one.

My work allowed free afternoons every second day and I spent them walking with them in the old city, a network of narrow alleys where they pointed out medieval parapets, lattice work, ancient doors and other architectural features in the same tone as they would shrapnel scarred walls, signs of the all too frequent suicide bombings.

Peshawar is a beautiful city in a sense that there is a profusion of old and new. Shopping with them in ultra modern shopping malls with Calvin Klein and Louis Vuitton imitations was really cool. We took rides in the extremely garrishly addorned buses(entire volumes have been written about them), we took walks in the grounds of the University of Peshawar, a venerable instution that looks like an imperial palace complete with courtyards and towers.

They offered to go into the hills and shoot an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade-I’m sure you knew that) for about ten dollars and should I add five dollars, they’d throw in a goat to aim at. There is not a joke within a mile of this. I declined the offer and remembered not to comment on the poor goat( imagine it being led into a meadow, where it would proced to graze unsuspecting of its fate) I did not say anything because that would have just been GAY.

Pakistan, and the entire Indian sub-continent I was told, is crazy about food and I soon caught the bug. I pigged out continuously, never refusing a parcel I was offered and occasionally stealing it when it wasn’t offered. It was that good. Food is what naturally happens in Pakistan after a handshake. I visited their families, ate the best lamb kebabs in this solar system, big flat spicy patties of lamb mince that you have with Naan bread and an assortment of vegetables. I am drooling copiously on the keyboard as I write this.

Walking through the colourful markets with them was an enlightening experience as I managed to be pulled in the back of every second shop, to sit on a carpet with seven or so other bearded men( bearing an uncanny resemblance to the stereotypical Taliban) who would poor me tea , nudge me to drink it and have a few samosas with. It’s a sign of respect to the guest, owing to the sacred custom of hospitality and sanctuary. And I tell you I was a hit. At the end of one particularly full day at the market, my pee had the distinct and unmistakable whiff and tinge of Jasmine green tea.

Sadly for me, The North West frontier Province is one of the few places on earth where alcohol is expressly forbidden.

To acquire some legally, one must first register with the local authorities for a permit by providing proof that one is not a Muslim. The permit takes upwards of three months to get (“Shrill scream” to use another friend’s expression). They must have noticed the trembling of my lip and the tears welling in my eyes because they quickly told me that there were “ways” wink-wink. That same evening I was generously plied with smuggled vodka (that tasted like paint stripper but hey...who am I to refuse a gift) and cold, battered and bent Heineken cans that had been brought in on camel back from Russia. You just have to know people who know people.

Strongly regimented societies need outlets, valves to let the pressure out, and I was lucky to witness one such instance by going to a party. Think of an apartment at the top of a building in the business quarter of the city, packed to the brim with mostly young men and the odd group of shy-looking but extremely outspoken young women and a sprinkling of visiting arty types from Karachi and Islamabad. The discussion went from fashion to gossip (I knew no one concerned, but I tell you it was sizzling), to politics. The whole thing happened in a very relaxed way, with a respectful observance of etiquette between the men and the women, but I could see some romances blossoming on the couches(still a good metre distance between the two , bashful eyes, very awkward and really sweet- it was courtship the Romeo and Juliet way).The blaring music (from Britney Spears to Pakistan’s top ten of the week) and a sea of cheap booze moved things along and soon after I got there everyone was dancing. I almost envied them, this double life they lived, this juncture of world they lived in and their deep awareness of the moment. I remember at some point being in the middle of a circle of dancers throwing back my nth shot of liquid fire and thinking that I was partaking in a privileged, exclusive and rare experience, much like a once in three hundred years alignment of stars. Drinking in the moment, literally.

Three weeks into my visit, we went to the Indus Valley, at a spot where the Indus and the Kabul River meet into a gigantic Y shaped formation. It was in the full of winter so the water levels were low and we stood in this expanse of huge shiny pebbles, waves upon wave of smooth rocks in colours ranging from jet-black to a translucent white with all the hues and nuances in-between. We let our minds wander for a while taking it all in. I imagined how many people had sat here throughout the ages, in this legendary valley. And we talked about world perspectives, life expectations, country, family, and love.

The both of them were expecting their families to choose brides for them and they explained the rationale behind what is widely viewed in the west as backwards and devoid of love. First of all, their parents and their parents’ parents had had their marriages arranged and fared quite well in them, viewing the marriage less as a thing of love and more like a stable partnership whose primary aims were the prosperity of the family, the flourishing of good relationships between two clans as well as the upholding of millennia old traditions that make up their culture. They also believes tht love grows, it doesn’t just happen. An approach that carries more sense and sensibility than “the bachelorette”, what with its hire/fire, marriage for morons(albeit with perfect teeth and heaving bosom) . When they said marriage they meant “business” and if love happened in the mix they would be really happy.

We talked world and we talked country. They were enamoured with their torn land, in love with what it could be and they expressed their views on the fundamentalists- they were sad at the fact that most of them were born and bred in such poverty that undiscerning fundamentalism was the only thing that gave them purpose. They could understand that but all the same they spoke of them with palpable disgust, as the people who robbed them continuously of their lives, family members, their religion and their future.

We took a trip to Islamabad, a beautiful artificial city that is laid in an uncompromising grid of confusingly similar streets. It’s wooded and very cosmopolitan, a mere few hours from Peshawar, there were women with no veils on in the streets, fewer burqas and all manner of things western. After a mosey around the main sights, Feisal mosque (Incredible place), we went up the Margalla hills to a place called Daman-e-Koh, a popular-if not generic looking- picnic spot for the well heeled locals with an array of restaurants. The view was unbelievable, the city literally laid to your feet.

My experience of Pakistan will always be through the lens of the friends I made, a friendship that transcended a lot of race, religious and location obstacles. I’m still in touch with them and I still miss a land that is troubled, misunderstood and beautiful. From the organic chaos of Peshawar to glitzy-and somewhat clinical - Islamabad, I met the people whose voice I hear whispering “try a bit harder “whenever I have a guest. With them I learnt to appreciate the extent of the problems their country is facing and the courage it takes to live there and still believe tomorrow will be better.


Incidentally, two of the places I had meals in, The Marriot in Islamabad and the Pearl Oriental in Peshawar were the targets of terrorist attacks which claimed the lives of dozens of people.

The day before I left, Qash and Yakub came over and brought the last round of booze along with some gifts, one of them a huge cake made with dates and cinnamon. We spent two hours talking and eating and making plans about the time they would come and visit Africa. We parted tipsy- a tad bit teary too- but armed with the certitude that we shall meet again.

The next day at the airport, I was coldly informed at the PIA check-in(the things I wish them are in the BLEEP category) that I had excess luggage and had to lose some of the ballast. After a few moments of careful consideration I parted with about three kilos of books and –shriller scream- the date cake. It had to be done-although dates and cakes even when not together trigger a sweeping tide of guilt . I calm myself by chanting “it’s not the food, it’s the people that matter.”

To my two brothers from another mother, Qash and Yakub and to their beautiful country, Pakistan.