Memoir from Uganda

Julian Welch

Special to the G21

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Why had I chosen Uganda? Wasn't this the place that had murder and terrorism and more murder?

I pondered this as I sat alone waiting for my flight. I had done well to avoid fear of the unknown...until now. Struggling to repair my self-confidence, I promptly reviewed my purpose. I would only need to recall my first thought when I learned of this trip. This could be one of those life-affirming journeys that I had read about so often in my favorite travel magazines. I am all of those inspirations manifested in one slightly balding and barely overweight guy.

In the spirit of those who have gone before me, I did not want to return home until I had eaten and drunk and breathed what made Uganda so unique.

On visiting the country during England's colonial reign, Winston Churchill, with the help of a smart clerk and his pen, was heard to aptly christen the land "The Pearl of Africa." Despite the possible dangers, I was not turning back. Little did I know how close I would actually come to death.

I entered the plane equipped for a thirty-day volunteer program designed to assist in the communication between children and their infirm parents. I was to videotape the condition of the villagers' homes. I had no experience in the medical field. I would soon learn passion to journey was my only prerequisite.

I pushed open the main doors exiting Customs to a crowded lobby. The large windows couldn't stop the equator's brilliant sun. The room was a sauna, but the elevation brought with it the occasional cool breeze. Timed appropriately it could evoke a momentary thought of paradise.

I had arrived several days before my team to indulge myself in travel time alone. Guidebooks on Uganda were hard to find in the States and while standing in the airport I learned they needed frequent updating.

Several cabbies approached me. I began to ask for the cost of a ride to Kampala in Swahili, as the guidebooks suggested, but I was interrupted and directed to the cabby sitting at the entrance. He was unassuming and appeared tired, but perked up when I approached. He was the only driver who spoke Swahili. He explained Luganda is the dominant language. I mentioned I thought English was the national language.

"Yes, but not all want to speak it and most out in the villages can't," he declared. I told him I would be spending a good portion of my time in Kakiri and his smile revealed empty spaces between tobacco stained bucked bicuspids and a coffee colored fourth incisor: A rocky cliff leaning over the water with eroded paths of mud and hanging grass.

"You will need an interpreter there, Ssebo."

I bought a Luganda phrase book later that day. I was pleased to read he had addressed me quite formally. He could have called me bald fat guy for all I knew.

He said his name was Emanuel and he was going to be my driver. I decided I would see everything that time allowed and the first sight on my list was only a mile away. The old Entebbe Airport appeased my appetite for the peculiar. The movie "Raid on Entebbe" conjured up images of masked men and large guns. I vaguely remember the hostage situation, as I was young when it happened and fairly uninterested. Now I was thrilled. Anything painting Uganda's essence was an invitation to absorb the culture. I walked through the old remains and heard their version of what actually happened. Tourists are allowed to sit where the hostages sat which is a creepy sensation. "This is where so and so was shot."....

Emanuel sat reading New Visions, one of the local government-subsidized newspapers, in the taxi as I returned.

"You did not like, Ssebo?"

"Why do you think that?"

"You're back so soon."

I was admittedly spooked though I did not have a history of incontinence in my family, I thought it best not to push it.

The ride to Kampala is something I will never forget. I sat in the back as we left the airport and I anticipated Africa with all of her elegant wildlife, awesome vegetation, and her mystery that evokes images of forbidden pleasures. Wasn't it here that Adam ate from the rotten apple? I don't care if it isn't, because it fits the mood I'm trying to summon. Impetuous and ungovernable, Everyman loves this place because he believes here he will never acquiesce to anything other than his desires. And she was right out my window in front of me and behind and all around. Being overcome by some primitive instinct, I wanted to rip my shirt off and grunt like Tarzan. And then I realized I would commit about four hundred cultural faux pas, so instead I opted for a hotel to get a nice hot shower, change into a cottony-soft fresh robe with matching slippers, and read a good book. I was an animal.

Kampala presented two hotel options: shockingly-out-of-my-range-expensive and I-had-a-bucket-for-a-toilet-inexpensive. I chose the latter as I thought eating was equally as important as sleeping. I did spend some evenings at the expensive hotels as they offered nightly entertainment such as Kenyan acrobats at the Equatorial Hotel and live Ugandan bands at the Nile Hotel. I learned quickly the inexpensive hotels do not offer much in the way of frills, but most have little restaurants serving great food and a chance to meet the locals.

I sat frozen before my dinner at the Sandy Springs hotel enclosed in a defective mosquito-screened patio. I scrutinized the room for the silent killers, nervously awaiting certain death. I had heard the ones you can't hear buzzing around your head are the ones to fear.

The entire evening I heard nothing, not even the slightest buzzing. I knew I was surrounded.

"The mosquitoes don't get hungry until midnight." The man speaking had so much hair on his face I couldn't see him but for his eyes and his white forehead when he took his cap off. His name was Jonathan and he was Œstuck' in Uganda with no money to get back home to Amsterdam.

"How did you get stuck so far from home?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," he belched while guzzling his banana beer in a container so large we would describe it as a trash can. It must have held forty gallons of beer and he wore much of it on his face. He smoothed his moist whiskers and reminded me of my neighbor's sheep-dog during her bath in the kiddy pool. Jonathan was doused in a kind of sweet cologne that might have been a mixture of dirt, body odor, and banana.

Our waitress became very interested in me when she heard I was from the United States.

"I really like the States, because of your music," she exclaimed.

"Oh really, who do you like?" I asked.

"Bob Marley...and, um, the Beatles."

"Uh-huh." I didn't have the heart to tell her.

"What the hell? The States get credit for everything!" The sheepdog howled about ten decibels too loud: the product of a barrel of Banana hooch.

"The Beatles are from Liverpool!" he bellowed. "Christ, it is a bleak place though. You could never imagine..."

He became suddenly still as though he had just passed out, or worse. As the frightened waitress and I stared, waiting for him to fall into his stew, he jerked violently. He seemed to be jolted by some cosmic force, as if this one last comment had to be said before meeting his maker.

"Nyabo, the Beatles are the only good thing to come out of that godforsaken place... God knows she was no good. That woman was evil I'm telling you, she..." And he was out again.

The waitress smiled as if she had any idea what he was talking about. I smiled and paid for my meal, leaving him alone to dream about his British devil woman.

As cute as our waitress was, I moved on to the College Inn with the help of Emanuel. He would sit in the taxi for hours on end hoping I would require his services. I told him I could walk into town from the College Inn but he told me he preferred to wait until I needed him. Eventually he realized I really couldn't afford a chauffeur and told me to call him sometime.

After several jaunts into the city on foot I learned a short cut. I began through the yard of a local hotel whose guests offered Italian greetings, "Ciao." I smiled and slipped carefully behind the garbage dump where the Marabou storks, as tall as me and a whole lot tougher, were enjoying a balanced meal of trash and other small animals. I gently tiptoed worried I might be dessert. And then I stepped on a twig. They turned quickly. I apologized and promised them I did not come for their bounty, but they didn't accept and charged me.

I squealed like a little girl and took off down the hill, my eyes wide open from fear with giant man killers hunting me. What a glorious sight this must have been for the picnickers of the Kampala Sheraton, sitting gracefully with the proper Alexander technique, on blankets in the yard. As I reached the main thoroughfare, I was happy to find my predators had stopped thirty yards from the road. They must have realized I was tired of running and ready to crack skulls. No, they feared traffic: the big wussies. It didn't take long before I understood why.

If you've been to Rome, Italy (not Rome Georgia, though they can't drive either) you know the drivers have no regard for anyone, not even themselves. But Kampala was a testament to my skill to jump and dance and scream.

Apparently no one had figured out the whole car and road thing yet.

If the drivers are reading this -- you drive on the roads, that's why you have them. Leave the sidewalks to the pedestrians.

And it wouldn't hurt the city to get a few stoplights. A word of advice-pay close attention to the yellow one, even though we don't...

After I taunted the birds from the other side of the street knowing they couldn't get me now, I thought I recognized what appeared to be a smirk. They knew I would have to return to my hotel sometime, and they'd be waiting for me. I think I even saw the leader wearing a leather jacket and smoking. I swallowed hard as my childhood days of teasing the bully from up in the tree -- where he's on the ground afraid to climb -- and my dad at the worst time calling me to dinner, and the bully laughing and punching his fist, hasn't taught me anything. Why did I flip them the bird? Oh why, oh why.

I turned away to avoid the torment and pain and anguish and, oh look, food. Salvation.

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