On Sunday, I made my first trip to the big city, Kampala, capital of Uganda, where one can buy almost anything (especially compared with the modest goods one can get in Bundibugyo). It’s amazing that, after only about three weeks here, the conveniences of a modern city were a marvel to me. The fact that my hotel room had both hot water and a toilet was almost too good to be true, and I walked around stores in the city with an almost giddy demeanor as I surveyed all of the goods that were available. The grocery store made me realize both how much I was starting to miss many of the foods I’m used to, and also how expensive my tastes are. I had to put off buying nice cheeses until I’m really desperate (give it a couple of months) and willing to pay the exorbitant prices they charge. I got my first experience riding a boda boda – a motorcycle taxi that is great for getting through traffic quickly but terrible for staying alive. I had to get somewhere quickly during rush hour, and the car was being worked on, so I went to find a boda boda to take me there. A Ugandan quickly warned me that it was not safe, but then went and found a driver with “good behavior” to get me there. It was a fun ride, and only once was I certain that I was going to die. But before I left Kampala I’d taken a couple more rides to get around quickly. It’s a pretty efficient form of transportation, especially during rush hour (which seems to me like most of the day), and there’s a certain thrill to it. Even since getting back to Bundibugyo on Wednesday, I’ve taken bodas into town and back twice, and there’s talk of me learning to drive them soon.
On Wednesday, Pat and I were up at 6, furiously trying to get our errands done and got on the road in time to reach Bundibugyo before dark. There’s a general rule that one shouldn’t drive after dark, for two reasons – first, any stretch of road that might be home to highway thieves becomes a bad idea after dark, but the bigger concern is that it’s just no fun to break down after dark in a place where there are no tow trucks, no AAA, and possible no town for another hour of driving. We were very delayed leaving Kampala, since we had to wait for the mechanic to finish working on the car, but we hit the road around 12:30, just about the latest we could leave and still hope to make it before dark. We reached Fort Portal, just on the other side of the mountains for Bundibugyo and about 2.5 hours from it, and decided to go for it, figuring we’d get back just after dark. We knew that Scott and Jennifer were also traveling back to Bundibugyo with the Ryans (it's been awesome having them here), after a couple of days of retreat and relaxation, but figured they were well ahead of us and furthermore, might not be thrilled about us racing the sun to get back, so I didn’t mind when I couldn’t reach them by phone – I figured that meant that the decision then fell to us. We just made it over the mountain top – still more than an hour from Bundibugyo, when we came upon Jennifer, Skip, and Barb, sitting by their truck with a flat tire. As it turns out, both of the spares they were carrying were also flat, so Scott had jumped on the back of a truck with both spares to get them repaired at the nearest town, about a half hour away. I hopped out to stay with Skip and the truck and wait for Scott, while Pat took Jennifer and Barb home. It was great to just sit on the hood of the truck in the middle of the African jungle and have a good conversation with Skip as the sun set. As it got dark, I heard all sorts of interesting birds and other animals that I can’t remotely identify, and they all seemed to be about 10 feet away in the thick vegetation. It was a pretty cool feeling, but I’ll admit to being glad that I wasn’t alone. After about 45 minutes (it’s now almost pitch black) Scott came back on one motorcycle with a patched tire on the other. By this time, the jack underneath the truck was damaged and wouldn’t lift high enough to get the new tire on, so we began trying to rig up a contraption to hold the truck up while we lowered the jack, and then prop the jack up on some rocks to get some more height. As I was digging big rocks out of the forest in the dark for this purpose, we were fortunate enough to have another truck pull up and lend us their jack. Never underestimate the value of the kindness of strangers. We got the new tire on, and drove for about a half hour to the town where the second tire was now patched, picked it up and went on our way, thinking we were in the clear. Not one kilometer later our repaired spare went flat. Luckily, the people who had helped us were kind enough to have stayed behind us in case anything went wrong, which it clearly had. We put the new spare on, and the minute we let the jack down, the sound of air escaping was audible. So here we were, still 45 minutes from home, with a tire going flat, two flat spares, and the prospect of having to sleep in the truck to keep thieves away. However, on of our Ugandan friends managed to rig up the most unlikely contraption to prevent air from escaping from the valve. He bend the valve to the side, stopping the flow of air, a wedged a small rock between it and the wall of the rim, holding it in place. I thought that this would last about 10 feet on this bumpy road. Of course, when we got in the truck, there wasn’t an ounce of power flowing from the battery. I had a distinct sense of “Ok, so what else is about to go wrong?” Somehow, after about 30 seconds, the battery decided to work again and we started on our way. Miraculously, our little rock-in-the-wheel setup held in place for the 30 kilometers back to Bundibugyo, where we arrived sometime after 10, exhausted, stressed, and hungry, 10 hours after I had left Kampala. I felt terrible for Scott and Jennifer, as this was the culmination of their time of relaxation, but I was glad that our worry and delay leaving Kampala turned into a huge blessing for them. Some team members had prepared some dinner and had it waiting for us when we got back, so I ate and fell sound asleep almost instantly, a sweaty, dirty, sticky mess. And what wonderful sleep it was.
Next morning I was up early for a long, hot day of work at the food distribution, but this post is too long as it is, and that’s a story for another time.
2 comments:
I couldn't stop reading! Vivid descriptions, some hilarious one-liners.
The trip to Kampala and the reticence to luxuriate while in the city is a good sign that you are adopting the "vow of poverty" which many of us (let's face it- all of us) have little experience with. I'm thinking of a book which came out in the early 1980s called "The Celebration of Discipline". In it, we indulged by reading about what we could only fantasize about living out as you are there in BundyB. Closest experience I have had was walking for 75 miles through the wilderness of the Olympic National Park...for seven days, and coming out in a town called Hoodsport. There, I felt the sensation of movement in a car without having to exert my legs at all (after walking 75 miles) and arriving at a "hawaiian pig roast on a spit" 4th of July party at a scuba motel on the Hood Canal. One had to pinch themselves that we were not going to return to the wilderness for further travels on foot with only dehydrated food to eat.
The other thing that comes to mind is the memory while a "starving" student that beans, wonderful beans! are such a miracle food! Beans and Rice are, if one can discipline one's self to exclude the processed foods of babylon, and focus on the simple efficiency of beans (and rice), then one can purchase enough beans and rice with just a little money and survive for days on a few dollars!
Perhaps I can send you a little bottle of Tabasco! Just one or two drops of T sauce will turn those beans and rice into Sunday Dinner! The other observation I would make is that too much deprivation without some allowance for homemade ice cream from your veteran mission mates could turn Nathan into a curmudgeon (and we wouldn't want that). I would try to identify those luxuries which I can imagine as obtainable (without a harrowing trip to and fro Kampala). Would that I could, that home made ice cream is sounding pretty good to me right about now!
The other thing about being in the wilderness, is how good things taste which otherwise in the shelter of modern living would not taste as good. The most pronounced contrast I can think of is chocolate. People rarely eat chocolate (I mean real, raw, unsweetened dark chocolate- not milk chocolate). When one is surrounded by modern conveniences, the taste of dark chocolate is a little humdrum and bitter. But take that chunk of endorphin laced goodness into the wilderness and crack a nice flake off while taking a five mile break on a nurse log with a little view- and... you may as well have died and gone to heaven and taken a jog with God! The next thing you know is that when you get up, and start back on your journey, you will have forgotten the last five miles, and you will launch off on the next five with vigor.
The next time you go into Kampala I hope that you have a different perspactive on the modest luxuries that you have right there in BundyB...
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