#14 - June 16th 2007 – Southwestern Uganda Trip – Kabale

Connections…

My new traveling group, which consist of Natalie, Peter, Lindsey and Andrea, spent the night in Masaka’s Zebra Hotel. The staff put on a wonderfully delicious buffet first thing in the morning; I gobbled down the scrumptious steamed matoke, papaya and avocado, and we headed off on our adventure. It turns out I got a little more of an adventure than I bargained for. We boarded the bus that would take us to Kabale, the district that hosts Lake Bunyonyi, beginning our journey on a barely road-worthy ‘Greyhound-ish’ bus with standing-room only. The ride, five hours, was at times treacherous, terrifying, exciting, and breath-taking. At first I was nauseous and pale, as I stood gripping the small ceiling bar and praying for my life. The rickety bus plowed forward at 80+ km/hr around tight twists, and even faster down hills. The woman in the seat to my right threw up for five hours straight. Back in Canada I am a fearful passenger and although in Kampala I am fully used to the crazy taxis and bodas, these buses have given me an entirely new fear to overcome. They have an extremely high crash rate (sorry Mom!) and most bus lines have infamous nicknames (Gateway buses are known as Gateway-to-Hell buses, for example). After the first hour I decided to imagine I was traveling by train and that no matter how much the ‘car’ leaned left of right, or how fast we went, we wouldn’t leave the tracks. My mind eventually relaxed, my fingers loosened their grip. After two hours some passengers got off, allowing me to snag a window seat. This is where the breath-taking part comes in. Picturesque scenery continuously rolled past the window. Banana trees, towering eucalyptus, brilliant flowers, rolling green hills, clay mud huts dotting the countryside. Every turn was a new world. Uganda has unlimited beauty.

In Kabale we hired a 4x4 to take us to Lake Bunyonyi. We climbed through the mountains towards the secluded lake, passing young children clutching hammers, breaking up large rocks on cliffs. Next time you complain about a monotonous job, remind yourself of these children! Soon we found ourselves squished into two dug-out canoes, paddles in hand, ready to take on the lake. The calm waters, sinking sun and cool lake air made the journey through the islands magical. However, after an hour I was excited to see the shore of Byoona Amagara, island of little birds (check out the retreat at www.lakebunyonyi.net). To add to the mystique of the island, we lodged in a geodome; a horseshoe-shaped grass hut on the side of a mountain, completely open to the lake. Paradise was the first word that came to mind. Dinner was coconut curry and a cold Nile in the rustic thatched-roof restaurant. Delicious, hot, and satisfying. The island runs on solar power and thus is completely dark in the evening, save for candlelight. This is a good thing for several reasons, not excluding our inability to see the family (and extended family) of spiders that crawled in through the walls of our geodome while we were at dinner. As I begged Lindsey to tuck the mosquito net into my bed I pondered whether these fears of mine, of speeding buses and long-legged creatures, would eventually leave me. At that moment it seemed unlikely, but I said the same thing about taxis and bodas, which now seem like more of an adventure than something to fear.

I think there is a good possibility that after spending several months in a country where every experience is new, slightly frightening, and usually somewhere just outside my comfort zone, I will return home a different person. I already know for certain that I will be more calm and relaxed, less materialistic, more appreciative, more open. I also think I will have more confidence in myself, in my ability to stretch beyond my self-imposed box, to try things that used to give me hesitation. Not to sit at home and think of the things I wish I could do, but to be out doing them. Uganda has given me the push I needed.

Ugandans live life outside the home, with friends, with family, with nature. It is easy in Canada to do the opposite, to sit at the computer or in front of the television, to grocery shop and ride the bus with your ipod in your ears. The connection between ourselves and the outside world has disappeared. I think that each time you lose a connection, each time you check your voicemail instead of chatting with the cashier or look the other way when passing a neighbor on the street, you lose a chance to be happy, to learn something. Here in Uganda these chance meetings always lead to a new adventure, yet we close off those opportunities in Canada. The loss of human connection mirrors a similar disconnection with nature. Although Kampala is not a good example, outside the capital city people work with nature, not against it. I cannot draw such a striking contrast with Canada, as there are many environmental abuses in Uganda as well (damming the Nile, clear-cutting forests at a rate of 2% per year), and I’m sure a lack of financial capital is a large determinant of the lack of ‘urban sprawl’, but these factors aside, life isn’t an intense rush to build sky scrapers and mini-malls here. Its about growing your own food and taking care of your family, working with the land in a sustainable way. Rural Uganda is clay huts and red dirt roads and footprints that disappear after a moment’s rain.

I can’t put my finger on what it is about being here that is making me appreciate my natural surroundings so much more. Perhaps its something many travelers experience, but for the rest of my trip and when I return home, I will make every effort to conserve where I can, to explore and appreciate whenever I can. Being out on this island in the middle of nowhere, thankful for what I can’t hear (motorboats, jet-skis, vehicles) I now realize how unnaturally loud our world is, and how important it is to get away from it. To find a piece of solitude to think and reflect. If we continue to rush from one place to another, from work to supper to sleep, from school to career, from computer to phone to tv, when will there ever be time to evaluate the present situation? When would you get the opportunity to analyze whether you were truly happy with the path you are on? When would there even be time to make changes? If Canadians could learn the lessons of Uganda, of time and the importance of connections, if we could alter the way we measure success and happiness, I think we would have much to gain.

~Nicole