On Saturday, I went out to an island in Lake Victoria to
visit the family of my friend, Salima. She and Ally went ahead of me on Friday
afternoon, but I was stuck in a meeting, so I couldn’t come till the following
day. This meant taking a boat taxi, which was a new experience for me. These
boats take off from a point called the Masese Landing Site, which is a
delightfully dirty place that you can smell long before it’s in view. It’s
where the majority of fish heading to Jinja are brought in, weighed, and sold,
and the odor is pungent. When I arrived, there were ten or so 40 foot wooden
boats lined up along the shore, each heading toward a different destination and
filled to capacity with a hodgepodge of people, building materials, furniture,
fish, and the occasional farm animal. After I was directed towards the boat
heading to Lingira, I realized that there was no dock, and I’d have to wade
into at least 2 or 3 feet of water to climb aboard. A man stopped me as I began
to take off my shoes, and let me know that for a small fee, he’d carry me.
Figuring this was an unnecessary service performed by a man who was probably
trying to rip me off, and not really relishing the idea of being carried like a
child by another man, I kicked my shoes off, rolled up my pants and walked out
to board the boat. There was chuckling from all around me, and I figured people
must be laughing at this white guy acting so very African, not letting people
carry him. I soon realized, however, that they just thought I was a fool, because
once safely on deck I saw every other man boarding come to shore, climb on a
man’s shoulders, then let him carry them to the boat, staying completely dry.
Oops.
Being the forward thinker that I
am, I thought it would be a good idea to go out and watch the World Cup on
Friday night, which obviously goes hand in hand with a beer or three. The beers
are big here, and full of sugar, which means that waking up without feeling a
bit sick is rarely the case. It certainly wasn’t the case on boat day, either,
and the rocking of the waves combined with the stack of dead fish I was sitting
next to led to a very miserable hour and a half ride. The waves were constantly
splashing over the sides of the boat, and I was pretty thoroughly soaked within
the first half hour. Eventually, the man next to me offered to let me hide
under his tarp with him, which blocked most of the water, but entrapped me in a
hot, fishy, BO cocoon. Thankfully I made it safely to the island without
vomiting, but there was more than one close call.
When I
arrived, Ally and Salima were waiting for me, and after settling in a bit and
meeting some family, we went for a hike to a cross at the top a hill that makes
up the island. Poor Ally was in flip flops and skirt, which she was assured
would be proficient for the “short, easy walk” we were going on. Turns out that
means climbing straight up the steepest side of the hill, which is made up
entirely of sharp, igneous rocks and boulders that are very prone to slip out
from under you. It probably didn’t help that I was constantly reminding the
girls of how many wonderful hiding places for snakes we were trudging over, but
it may have sped up our progress to the top. The view from the summit was well
worth it. In every direction, you could see for miles over calm waters. The
lake was dotted with other islands, mounds of lush green erupting from a sea of
dark blue. To the East, the colossal red mass of the African sun was slowly
coming to rest over mainland, directly above the town of Jinja. To the south,
the village where we would be spending the evening was a Polly Pocket version
of itself, the loud hustle and bustle of the races going on there reduced to
faint cries of distant jubilation. Beautiful is an understatement. After
spending some time there, enjoying the sights and cool breeze, we began our
walk back to the village. Our hike brought us down a large grassy hill, which was
slowly overtaken by a cloud of dragonflies. Everywhere you looked, there were
thousands upon thousands of them, constantly surrounding us but always keeping
an arm’s reach of distance. It was
surreal.
We had
a wonderful dinner of fried fish and cooked bananas at Salima’s mom’s house,
where we sat on the floor of her mud hut and ate with some of her family. This
was a great experience, minus the fact that there was a chicken and a bunch of
chicks sitting in one corner of the house. This wouldn’t have bothered me, but
I swear that chicken was mean mugging me the entire time I ate, it’s beady
little eyes trying to rip into my soul. It would do this weird gagging thing
occasionally, where it would look like it was trying to make itself throw up,
which made eating difficult at times. I powered through eventually, although
I’d still love to give that chicken the boot. We spent the night at a YWAM base
on the island, which was comfortable enough. We left the following morning,
after I had been woken up by a menagerie of farm animals repeatedly greeting
each other from different parts of the island. It was a wonderful weekend.
The following
Monday was the Day of the African Child, which is a holiday commemorating a
massacre in South Africa in the seventies. It’s essentially where a bunch of
organizations that work with children get together and sit for a thousand hours
while each organization’s children perform some song or poem that is remarkably
similar to all the others. They didn’t get around to feeding the kids till
almost four, which was ridiculous. The highlight of the day was when the emcee
was telling about an organization that was there that deals with AIDS
treatment, blood testing, and safe male circumcisions. He got on the microphone
and said, “They are offering all their services free today, so if you need a
safe circumcision, you can go to them in that tent.” Ally and I had both looked
at each other and laughed, thinking he had made a joke, but everyone else did
not. He was being serious, you could actually go get chop shopped in a tent off
to the side of this celebration. I usually have a very tough time turning down
anything prefaced with the word “FREE,” but I decided to make an exception in
this case.
Some other fun things that happened this week:
-Went fishing on Lake Victoria with some of the guys from
the guest house, caught a pretty good sized Nile Perch
-Somehow an electrician screwed up the wiring in the house
when he was fixing a light, electrifying basically everything that was metal.
Ally nearly died trying to take a shower, where just touching the faucet gave
her a large jolt. We used a voltage tester, which is basically just a screw
driver with a light in the handle that lights up when it touches something that
has power running through it, and we tested most metal things in the house. It
was widespread, but Ally’s bathroom got it the worst. Someone placed the tester
in the water in her toilet tank, and it lit up like Christmas. It’s fixed now
-A team from the states arrived yesterday, which should be
fun. Most are here for two weeks, but one woman is staying for a full month. I
spent the day in Kampala while Ally picked them up from the airport. I was
riding through town on the back of a motorcycle taxi, when my driver got into
an argument with another man driving a different motorcycle. This argument got
heated, and soon got physical. They started pushing and trying to ram each
other with their bikes, and my driver even threw a couple punches, all while
driving at a steady 30mph or so with me on the back. It was comical at first,
then terrifying when one good push from our opponent almost caused our driver
to spill the bike, which most likely would have left me mangled. I finally
ended it by telling my driver that I wouldn’t pay him if he killed me, so they
split up with some more harsh words and hand gestures.
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