On the road... in Uganda

As Damien pointed out, travelling Loiterer style does involve an inordinate, and sometimes unbearable, amount of time getting around. Whether it is waiting around for a van to fill, or making seemingly endless stops to drop off or collect passengers, getting anywhere always takes time and patience.

Heading south from Kabale in southern Uganda to Rwanda we arrive at the bus stage by the side of the road just out of town to find there is a share taxi heading south for not much more than the bus. Share taxis in Uganda are an experience in themselves. Usually they are average sized Toyota sedans, which Ugandans cram seven people plus the driver in to. That is four in the back, two in the passenger seat, and one sharing the driver's seat with him.  We count ourselves lucky that this one is only taking six, throw our bags in the boot and squash in the back with two distinguished looking middle aged gentleman. Not long in to our journey one of the passengers in the front introduces himself as Rubes, and tell us it is our lucky day as he is going to be our tour guide for the trip. He explains that he owns and runs a camp just outside of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, and as he loves his country Uganda he takes great pleasure in showing around tourists. When we explain we are thinking about tracking the gorillas in Uganda or Rwanda he introduces us to Sunday, sitting in the back with us. Sunday (yes, he was born on a Sunday and hence the name) has been a guide for the gorillas in Bwindi for the last 18 years. After the shit stopped hitting the fan for long enough in Rwanda for tourists to start coming back he went there to train Rwandan guides.

Rubes gave us a running commentary as we drove through the Ugandan countryside, hill after hill denuded of almost all tree cover, divided in to long thin cultivated parcels of dark green. Some hills had terraces on them, but most were steep inclines, ploughed and planted - you could almost see the soil sliding down the hill as you watched.  Along the roadside and on the odd parcel of land are stands of eucalyptus, and the odd wattle tree. Rubes reminds us these are from Australia, and that they grow like weeds, he concedes that they are better than no trees but should be replaced with natives. The road continues to weave up, down, through, over and around the hills and we are afforded some picturesque views from the passes - back towards Lake Bunyoni, forward to the town of Kisoro, and the dramatic landscapes of the towering chain of volcanoes along the Uganda, Rwanda and DRC border.

Having just finished The Last King of Scotland, and not really seeing much physical evidence of a bizarre and traumatic eight years under Amin from 1971 to 1979, I was interested to see what Ugandans had to say about events in the recent past. To my first question of what do people think of Amin now, all three agreed that nobody remembers him well, and that the time of his rule was one of fear and danger.

Sunday explained that he was in grade 5 when Amin took power in 1971, almost as a way of trying to avoid talking about it in depth. I kept plugging away with my questions, and they opened up a little.
Sunday stated that Amin was illiterate, and that was a reason for so much of the violence and cruelty of those times. He was a military man, and military men are trained only to fight, when they have power they want to keep on fighting.
The passenger next to him said in those times everybody was afraid, They would just take people, anybody, from the street, from work, from their homes. Nobody ever felt safe.


Rubes, in a half hearted defence of Amin said that he did at least one good thing. When some farmers dug up a cow that had been slaughtered because of anthrax to eat, Amin sent a helicopter to the small little village and had them dealt with. Nobody can do this anymore lamented Rubes, however all three seemed to agree that this was a good thing.

I then asked what people thought about Musiveni (the current Ugandan President, who after two terms sought a third and is now seeking a fourth) All three moaned that while he had done some good things his refusal to give up power was disturbing. They all agreed that there was too much corruption in Uganda and that a clean, start was needed. Rubes told us he didn't like Musiveni because he wasn't environmentalist - he sold off forests to foreign investors to clear to grow sugar cane. We need a President like Kagame (Rwanda's charismatic President) When they asked him whether he wanted to be President after his second term, he said no, he would be too tired, he wants to have a normal life. Kagame is an environmentalist, there they protect forests, and stop people from clearing the land.
Rubes went on to explain that things were very different in Rwanda, the differences best encapsulated by his statement  In Rwanda, things are different, there are traffic rules, and there isn't the corruption like Uganda. In Rwanda a law is a law, in Uganda it is..... Nothing ?

Rwanda, here we come.