week for a conference in Kampala, Uganda, and then one week vacation
in Bundibugyo, Uganda. Bundi is the first place I lived/visited in
Africa and one near and dear to my heart, so needless to say I'm very
excited.
I have officially gone from rural to urban Africa - Epulu, DR Congo in
the Ituri Forest...whose unofficial statistics include population of
2000; 1:666.67 people-refrigerator ratio; 1:10 lightbulbs to people
ratio, people density on the road - 1 every 500 meter) , to Kampala
the capital of Uganda with a population of 1.5 million, rolling
blackouts / gov't enacted load-shedding, people density on the road -
1 person every meter, movie theaters, ice cream. The drastic
difference in livelihood activities and economic development is never
more clear than transitioning from an agricultural village to an urban
metropolis. Not really sure who is "better off" - the basic
difference in cities is that you spend the whole day doing stuff other
than preparing food - but then you have to make money to pay for your
food. People who knew I was about to go to the mother of regional
shopping centers sent me off with their "etats de besoin" - state of
need/shopping lists for sandles, watches, backpacks, all that - not
available in Epulu save for possibly the lowest quality since their
successful invention. For me, it feels and maybe is indulgent to
request hundreds of dollars here and there for traveling, conferences,
materials, and also booking air tix to Europe for Christmas vacation,
while other people ceaselessly continue pretty monotonous daily jobs
so they can earn their steady $2-3/day wages so they can eat. So goes
- our lives are so very very different. We both have the duty to care
for ourselves, family, and friends and must figure out the best way to
do that.
I love to travel - to see the transition from unbroken lowland
tropical forest to savanna in Congo to cultivated slopes and large
agricultural fields in Uganda - to hear the transition from
Francophone to Anglophone Africa - a sweet melody to my oh-so American
English ears! But with travel comes some unease that I can't really
trust people when negotiating for transport and small-talking. I'm
frequently posed with eager future collaborators and unwanted
propositions to exchange contacts.
But I have been so fortunate to meet people like Ahmed - a calm young
Somali-Kenyan who imports and sells petroleum in Congo. On Saturday we
rode in the car together in Congo for 3 hours and the bus for 8 hours
in Uganda. Upon learning we were both headed to Kampala, he offered
to assist me through the border, especially the surprisingly
more-confusing Ugandan side. On arrival, you must enter three little
huts where people scribble all your details into ancient registry
books. Despite purposefully packing light - I still ended up with 2
large and heavy bags, which Ahmed helped me haul around at the border.
Meanwhile he carried no bags and wore the same dusty clothes he had
worn on the same 300 km motorbike route we both had taken on Friday.
He speaks Swahili and broken English - often dropping words like nini
(what?) when searching for his English. He talked mournfully about
Somalia and his adopted home the Congo, the virtues of Islam, the
hypocrisy of extremists and international and intra-national players
in Somalia. He bought me some drive-thru goat meat then exchanged
with me because I thought the goat heart was both not tasty and
dodgily undercooked. After finally arriving at the busy and crazy bus
park, he helped me find transport and accompanied me from the bus park
to my hotel so that "no one would disturb me" and never asked me for
anything. Gosh - awesome!
For every person who becomes excited and usually stupidly
opportunistic when they see a muzungu - ex) calculating currency
exchanges off by a factor of 10 while using a calculator - I have met
an an equal number who are ready to assist foreigners around those
hasslers. My unease is slowly being replaced by an attitude of trust
and adventure. Really Africa is not so big and bad....which exists
without doubt, but in measures that are becoming few and far between.
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