"Ex Africa semper aliquid novi", quoth Pliny the Elder. There is some debate about what he really meant, but most likely he meant trouble. In this sense has the phrase been used most often since but I hope to reverse the trend and on these pages bring you the exciting, novel and curious out of Africa.

And wherever I am I hope to remain,
Ex Africa Semper Yours,
Berenika


Sunday 17 April 2011

An Introspection

A quote from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Not a description of your average tourist. But of your average backpacker, possibly? Of me certainly.

"The glamour of youth enveloped his particolored rags, his destitution, his loneliness, the essential desolation of his futile wanderings. For months--for years--his life hadn't been worth a day's purchase; and there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearance indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his unreflecting audacity. I was seduced into something like admiration-- like envy. Glamour urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed. He surely wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe in and to push on through. His need was to exist, and to move onwards at the greatest possible risk, and with a maximum of privation. If the absolutely pure, uncalculating, unpractical spirit of adventure had ever ruled a human being, it ruled this be-patched youth. I almost envied him the possession of this modest and clear flame."

Friday 25 February 2011

Exiting Kenya, or How the Wealth of Nations is Built on Cabbage

I was very hopeful I would be able to get out of Loralang the very same day. After all, I reckoned, I smelled so badly of no-longer-so-dry fish that the villagers should be all too happy to set me off on my way ASAP. Loralang on the western shore of Lake Turkana is incomparably bigger and more advanced than Solicho. The main street boasts some fifteen brick buildings, including a number of little shops and a restaurant owned by Mama Habiba’s daughter, Sarah. Trucks bringing in supplies and carrying away the delicious, yet stinky, Tilapia fish (all the way to Rwanda apparently) are much more frequent. I was not disappointed and after a relatively short, four hour wait we set off in the direction of Lodwar, a big town on the Nairobi-Sudan road.

After an uneventful, eight hour journey through the arid wastelands (the road runs parallel to the lake shore for a while but, unfortunately, a little distance from it so the views are not as spectacular as they could be) we arrived in Lodwar after midnight. The sight of a sure signs of civilisation that greeted me in this sizable crossroad town, i.e. tarmac and a petrol station, would have brought tears of joy into my eyes if I had not been so tired, sleepy and confused as to what to do next.

Arriving on your own to a new town at night is never a pleasant experience and one of the few things in travelling I dread. Streets are usually abandoned or full of, what seems like, shady characters. If they are quiet it’s spooky, and if they are full of noises, these usually sound threatening. Distances seem longer and topography is unclear. To ask for directions is to betray your confusion, manifest your vulnerability and invite trouble. With that wisdom in mind and without the faintest clue as to where any lodgings might be, I walked decisively and purposefully in a random direction, away from the few boda-boda drivers, touts and soldiers loitering in the dark around the trucks.

As I describe here (no. 5) a stroke of luck and the kindness of a boda driver got me to a hotel, where I could for the first time in over a week be alone, enjoy a shower and electricity. If it wasn’t for that all-pervasive smell of fish, I would have been very happy indeed.

The next day brought further luxuries such as coke, internet and even a bookshop where I bought the only book on Sudan they had in hope it would contain even the sketchiest map of the country I was about to venture into. It didn’t and it was quite unreadable.

Lodwar, in addition to the two petrol stations and the bookshop, also boasts a supermarket and a very popular juice shop. These kept me entertained while I waited in vain for a matatu to Kakuma, a UN refugee camp at the boarder with Sudan, to fill up. After two hours of waiting I got fed up and decided to try my luck with the lorries which I saw passing every now and again.

In bigger places, such as Lodwar there is usually a place where lorry touts gather and hail down passing vehicles to arrange passage for anyone who wants it. They get a percentage of the fare the passenger pays to the lorry driver. In theory it is an efficient system but the negotiations and shouting before the departure always takes a while and it is never entirely clear how much and to whom you need to pay, if at all. But if the driver waves the fee, as it happened to me on a number of occasions, he has to face the touts who often still demand a fee either from the passenger or the driver, as they had, after all, helped one to find a transport. These situations require quite a lot of patience, negotiating skills and tact – luckily almost invariably fellow passengers guide you as to what the appropriate response to the demands is.

I was lucky again and in no time at all secured a place in the cabin of a cabbage truck. In London, I have attended a number of lectures at the LSE, but it was on board of that truck that I have had my most informative and fun lesson in micro-economics. During the four hour drive I was being entertained by the owner of the truck with stories about his budding cabbage and charcoal business. As my only experience with supply-demand chain, logistics, price differentials and fright routes had up to that point come from sending virtual goods caravans in Civilisation II games, I listened enchanted as he explained that there he can sell his cabbage in the barren Kakuma camp for 60Ksh per head, while in his native Eldoret, the capital of cabbage commerce, only for 30Ksh, making a profit of over 50 000Ksh per trip on cabbage only. We would discuss the fuel costs, frequency of cargo shipments and the fluctuations of the cabbage prices. It was fascinating.

I would see the business in action as we stopped in the tiny nomadic villages of the famously fierce Toposa people and my cabbage cicerone would negotiate prices – ever increasing as we approached Kakuma. Conversely, the price of charcoal, the tall sacks of which line the road in most villages, would drop with the diminishing distance but my mercantile mentor was adamant it would be foolish to buy it en route while the real charcoal Eldorado waited in Kakuma.

We passed camel and goat shepherds who would eye us suspiciously from the sides of the road. Toposa women would walk go God knows where to and where from along the road carrying loads of charcoal on their heads. They would stop to let us pass and sometimes they would raise their tiny water jerry-jugs in pleading gesture. They were asking for water to ease their long journeys but the lorry never stopped. We stopped briefly at the only crossroads where the C47 from Lokitaung near the Turkana lake joins the Lodwar-Loki road. This place, with three brick buildings and absolutely nothing else, exists only because tiny amounts of gold are found in the creeks nearby. The locals sieve its sands for the precious metal which then they exchange for, presumably cabbage, at the crossroads.


The landscapes would grow more interesting as we made our way North. It is a land of harsh but stunning beauty. The road winds among the scrubby, yet green acacia-like trees, which my guides described as Mrumbaini, and the ubiquitous , three-meter tall termite mounds. The land is vast and flat, timeless and primordial. After all, the Lokitipi Plain, which we were passing, is the cradle of mankind - and it is without the slightest effort that one can imagine oneself transported through time when gazing upon these limitless spaces under the ever-blue sky.


The vistas get progressively more mountainous as the road approaches the rocky ranges which flank it on both sides. The hills are superbly picturesque: with sharp, lofty pinnacles; hollow, winding gorges or inaccessible, flat table-tops. Their sides are cut with scars of dry river beds - the sites of flush floods in rainly season, now just a mocking promise of moisture in the arid air. In the distance, far away in the direction of the Ugandan boarder one can see even taller ranges, both menacing and mysteriously alluring. The remotness, serenity and vastness of this beutiful landscape is without doubt worth returning to one day.

We arrived at Kakuma in good time. Kakuma, a refuggee camp for the Sudanese affected by the civil war, is a vibrant, yet depressing place. It's very name, meaning 'nowhere' in Swahili is depressing and life in this camp was famously harsh. In its hayday the camp hosted 70,000 refugees; now thanks to the CPA substantially fewer. I was tempted to stay with my cabbage truck and observe the trade in the camp the next day. It might have made for a very interesting reportage. But as it was Sunday and the next day was Kenyan holiday I would have had to wait two days without a guarantee the camp commander will grant me access when he gets back on Tuesday. So I bid my cabbage companions farewell and good luck and went to get a transport further on to Lokkichoggio, the last Kenyan town on the Sudan boarder.

It took nine hours to cover the 200kms from Lodwar to Loki and I was tired after a comfortable, yet lengthy journey. We approached the ‘suburbs’ of Loki as the last rays of sun disappeared on the horizon. Once again I found myself in an unknown town, tired, alone and after dark. But once again I was lucky – one of my fellow passengers was a softly spoken Methodist missionary. He offered my lodgings free of charge in their teaching compound, now abandoned for holidays. I accepted graciously and found myself in what certainly must have been the cleanest and most comfortable abode in the whole of Loki. Not only I had a huge room with en-suite warm shower at my disposal, not only was I treated to delicious meal in the company of talkative Sudanese Dinka missionaries, but joy of joys of the modern man, I had internet access in my room throughout the night.

I was clean, safe and finally, after a week of craziest adventures of my life, on the boarder with Sudan, which I was about to enter the next day.

Thursday 10 February 2011

Rendille Wedding Photos

Rendille Women


I am still working on a post about the fascinating and colourful Rendille wedding I attended in December near Marsabit in North Kenya but while you wait, I encourage you to have a look at some photos from the ceremony and celebrations here.

Thursday 27 January 2011

The Various, Curious and Spurious – Sex and Food

In this series of posts I have decided to bundle together some of the random flavours of Uganda. This practice will be entirely at odds with the modern socio-anthropological practice, which abhors pointing fingers at other cultures’ curios and idiosyncrasies and prefers to look at them as comprehensive, self-explanatory systems, where nothing is ‘weird’, just yet not understood. Good for them. I will nevertheless revert to pre-Bronislaw Malinowski techniques of those good old fashioned nineteenth century armchair anthropologists who found utmost pleasure in trying to make sense of the quirkier, more colourful and unusual aspects of ‘exotic cultures’. With all due respect, that just makes for a better read than Levi-Strauss.

This is a rather eclectic combination of facts, images and impressions that have surprised, intrigued or amused me during my travels. While some of them are peculiar to Uganda, others I have observed Africa-wide and others are just non-European. But they all make Uganda a colourful, fascinating and perplexing place.

Relationships

The Saturday editions of the two main newspapers, the government New Vision and the independent Daily Monitor, have a rather sizeable agony aunt and matchmaking inserts. These make for a fascinating read.

Firstly, white is still in demand. For example, in the recent issue out of 23 ladies 11 were searching for a white man, out of which two requested that he be wealthy too. The guys were less fussy, only 6 out of 40 wanted a ‘beautiful white lady for love’. Secondly, most of the posts contain a note that HIV test is a must. Not so surprising when one considers, that despite commendable government and NGO efforts (on the Kenyan-Ugandan boarder there is a free condom-dispenser, although I do wonder why there) still over 6.5% of Ugandans are thought to be HIV positive. This also explains, why there are three categories of match-adds ‘man seeks woman’, ‘woman seeks man’ and ‘HIV positive’. ‘Man seeks man’ does not feature but that should not surprise you if you recall that Uganda made headlines worldwide with its attitude to homosexuals not that long ago. Lastly, the adds also often contain tribal affiliation requirement, for example Acholi, Langi or Mukiga; more often so than religious, although adjective ‘God-fearing’ is used in many.

This is a subject meriting its separate entry but it is worth noting that Uganda (and Kenya) has a striking number of single mothers. This problem has been raised by many women with whom I have spoken and their explanation is usually poverty and the fact there are more women than man out there. If there is a husband, the families are usually large (the record so far was a man who claimed to have 24 kids with 3 wives, second came a policeman with 12 kids with one wife) but I have also spoken to many girls of my age struggling to make-do while also caring for one or two love-children. Ugandan law provides for them in theory but in practice tracking a run-away dad is next to impossible, in particular if he has enough money to pay bribes. As in many developing societies, boys are still preferred to girls, the explanation given being that the girl leaves the household (i.e. supports her husbands parents in their old age) and usually brings a lesser return on educational investment (women earn less, especially if they have children). Sadly, many women seem to be convinced that, given the large number of NGOs dealing with orphans, their children would be better off without any parents.

Bus Rides and Hawkers

I love riding buses and matatus, despite their smelliness, hard seats, crowds and long waiting times, for two reasons: the views and bus-stop hawkers. Not much to be said about the views in general (they are pretty) but the hawkers are fascinating. Whenever a vehicle pulls up en route to let people off or on, its sides get flooded with a throng of sellers trying to reach its windows and offer their wares to the passengers sitting within. They mostly sell food, although other articles, like watches, belts, perfume and live chicken also feature. The nicest thing about them is that the hawkers are not aggressive or persistent in the slightest, a polite ‘no, thank you’, or even a smile and headshake is enough to make them turn their attention elsewhere. Given the fierce competition between them (there are usually many people selling the same thing) this is rather surprising. It makes me wonder if the profits, at least in some villages, are not shared somehow or if there is not a rotation system in place.

In any case, travelling on an African bus is like being in a moving restaurant. You don’t have to move from your seat to be able to enjoy refreshments and local tastes. You can start the journey by stocking on biscuits, water and chewing gum, which local boys carry on their shoulders in cardboard boxes. The drinks are usually nice and cold but you should always check if the seal is unbroken. As you stuff yourself with cookies, you might want something more watery – that’s when you could reach out for fruit which is sold either as fruit salad on trays (watermelon, papaya, avocado, durian and carrots (don’t ask me why carrots)) or separately (good luck fitting a durian through those little windows). After a couple of hours its time for something more substantial: there are chucks of meat on a stick (goat, beef, liver (yuck!) and chicken), roast sweet-corn (my favourite), roast bananas (one of the basic staples), chapattis (pancakes) or roasted cassava. Should you feel that has not been sufficient, you can always fill up on deep-fried locusts, peanuts and pumpkin seeds, or popcorn. There are also muffins, banana doughnuts (yummy) or mandazis for dessert.

Stuffing yourself too much however might not be advisable as there are usually no toilet breaks and if there are the bus just stops on the side of the road and both men and women squirt in the plain view (you are lucky if there are bushes). Instead, you can always buy that live chicken (usually three in a bunch tied by their legs) for later.


Thursday 6 January 2011

African Christmas Carol III

The list of selfless, kind acts bestowed upon me by Africans and Mzungus alike continues to continue:

29. Assaska, a friend of Jedrek and Kate’s immediately took me under her wing. Not only did she take care of me in Nairobi, showing me nice places, introducing to her friends and helping out when I could not find the PIN to my card, but also invited to a fascinating event, the Rendille traditional wedding. She organised the whole trip to her home village and, together with her mum, hosted us royally making sure we notice, understand and appreciate all the local customs and traditions. Her boyfriend, Jeff, an anthropologist by training, was especially helpful in the latter task.

30. I was very much impressed with the amount of time and effort Albert, a local Ngo worker, with whom I sat trembling from cold and fright during an incredibly fast and rough ride on the back of a pick-up truck with no number plates driven by a Sudanese soldier on the way between Gulu and Pakwach, put into helping me get into the Murchinson Falls park and then, when the attempts failed, to organise me a lodgings for the night and transport for the next day. He spent over two hours just sitting with me and calling his various friends and relatives in the vain hope that someone knows someone who might let me into the park after nightfall. We talked to a dozen people but none of them were able to help and Albert was as inconsolable as if it was him that wanted to get to the park, and very apologetic that I had to spend the night in a local hotel, which he also organised.

31. In Malindi, a sea-side “Italian” resort, a friendly girl working at my campsite offered to show me the way to the beach, which was surprisingly difficult to find. She did not want to swim so she just sat at the shore watching over my things as I negotiated my way through the disgusting brown weeds to take a quick dip in the sea.

32. Politicians are rarely credited with selflessness and altruism, and in this case too the motives of Ugandan politicians I met in Gulu might have not been entirely pure. No matter why they did it, the contacts they provided and the rides they gave me during my chase after Museveni were very helpful.

33. One afternoon I was walking back to Bros Camp in Juba, when a motorcyclist pulled up, said he works at Bros and saw me there and can take me back with him if I want to save myself the 10 minute walk. And why not?
Joy, also from Bros, is a singer at a local band. I met her at a birthday party and pronounced my admiration for her African dress. She immediately offered to take me to the market the next day so that we can choose the material and find a tailor to make me one. We did that the next day and she was very patient with my fussiness over the colours and prices, as well as very helpful with some pattern tips.

34. In Lokkichoggio a friendly Methodist missionary met on the bus offered me shelter for the night in their surprisingly fancy teaching compound. He left me his room, spick and span, with shower and internet, while he slept in the dorm. Did not expect such comforts in the friendless North. I was fed, entertained with conversation and then transported to the bus stage from where I could cross over to Sudan.

35. Although I have already covered “transport kindness”, these guys need a special mention, as they have not only provided a vehicle, but also lunch and a hassle-free border transport. I am talking of the ‘governor’s men’ a group of constructors and businessmen who were leaving Lokichoggio for Torrit. There is not much transport from Loki, so their decision to take me to their already nearly full car was much appreciated. Thanks to the fact we were travelling in the car of the governor of the Eastern Equatoria province I had no problems at the border – as a matter of fact I did not even have to see a border-clark but gave my passport to our driver who arranged a stamp for me. Once on the other side, we stopped in Kapoeta, where they were building a hotel, for lunch which they kindly shared with me and then proceeded to Torrit, to report at the Governor’s residence.

36. The Governor turned out to be a very nice man, who was only a little surprised to see me roll in onto his yard with his men, but who did not let his astonishment affect his hospitality. We all sat at a table in the garden, just as if I was also one of his men returning from fieldwork. We were treated to cold drinks and later to buffet dinner, also in the garden, during which the governor kept insisting I take one helping after another. The food was delicious, so after a couple of hours and shaking the Gov’s hand goodbye, I rolled out on my fat belly into the night.

37. Tea and cattle break.


38. Again, this is but a transport rescue but it came just in time to save me from being eaten alive by tsetse flies. I was walking back from Murchinson Falls NP in the early hours of the morning. There is but one road out so the idea was that I walk until someone comes and picks me up. The air was cool, my luggage not too heavy so for the first half an hour I thoroughly enjoyed my walk. But as the sun warmed the air those little bastards appeared out of nowhere and started feasting on me. Mind you, they no longer carry sleeping sickness (I think) so there was no immediate risk of death. But had I not covered every inch of my skin, I swear, I would have died from thousands of painful bites. I found myself practically running, with a 18kg backpack, not to outrun the swarms but to make the bites that little bit less frequent. The appearance of a jeep with two American girls who decided to stop at pick me up was a saving grace and I owe them if not my life, then certainly my sanity (such as it is).

39. This story actually happened not during my current trip but during an equally crazy venture onto Mt Kenya with my mum, some 13 years ago. With not much preparation, inappropriate gear, no guides or porters we elected to climb this imposing mountain on the Chogoria – Naro-Moru route. We succeeded and rushed down to get some transport on the way back. On the way down, we met out first fellow-climber. A tall British guy, immaculately dressed in Bergson-wear, carrying a light day pack and a bottle of water and stepping daintily. We, on the other hand, were exhausted, sun-scorched, dehydrated, mal-nourished and, in my case, altitude-sick and were running and stumbling to get down fast. Really, in these circumstances my dry lips were the least of my problems but I still very much appreciate that, after some greetings and comments about the weather (treacherous, very treacherous), he looked at me with concern, produced a lip-balm from his pocket and would not let me go until I made sure my lips were properly re-hydrated.

40. Another generic group of helpers are those who have kindly been showing me the way. I have never been in a country with people hostile enough to refuse giving directions, but East Africans go out of their way to make sure you don’t get lost, often walking with you up to your target. Don’t try to ask boda-boda drivers about directions though – they might be best informed but, unlike the London cabbies, they will insist on taking you there even if it’s a few meters away!

41. During my ascent up the Jbel in Juba, I had the help and guidance of a little boy by the name of Monday. He nimbly climbed in front of me, waited for me to catch up and then run ahead further. I did not want a guide but his company was quite pleasant so we climbed the mountain together, then sat on the top and ate bananas, whose skins we would throw onto the rocks in frost of us and watch the falcons swoop and pick them up, only to throw them down from lofty heights with disdain once they figured what that was. Luckily, not onto our heads.

42. and 43. In Loralang I was treated to lunch, a place to nap and invaluable advice by Sarah, Mama Habiba’s daughter who runs a hotel on the other side of the lake. In the very same place I was first greeted by the chief of village himself who admitted me to his kraal, seated in the shade, treated to sodas and then escorted to my onward transport.

44. This point is less of a single act of charity but more of a charitable phenomenon which I find very touching. African obligatorily wash their hands before meals and, given the lack of running water, it is often done at the table with water, soap, bowl and towel being brought to the diners. Sometimes the waitress or hostess does it but more often the water in a jug and the utensils are left to the guests, who help each other pour the water over their hands, pass the soap and hand the towel. It is moving and humbling to see strangers render this small service onto each other. Part-taking in the ritual made me think of the biblical foot-washing and was a deep bond experience.

45. Deeply touching were those occasions when local people after a few moments of conversation offered me a piece of their jewellery as a token of remembrance. I have already described my encounter with Halima, but another memory I treasure if of a girl from Soricho who I met when I was trying to explore the local church. Or at least I was told it was a church (it was the only 2-storey structure in the village), but when I very confidently strode in opening the heavy metal door wide, it turned out it is actually someone house. Lilly, was one of the inhabitants but she unabashedly came up to me, took me by the hand and showed me around the house. Then, all the time holding hands, we went outside to find her father, who spoke a little English and told me that the girl was one of his 6 and 17 years old. We strolled around the village for a while, went back to my kraal where she was reluctant to enter. But she took a string of beads with a single white shell from her neck and hung it on mine. This time I felt both compelled and able to reciprocate so I gave her my sunglasses in return. She was overjoyed.

46. Deeply grateful to Fasel and his family for hosting me on Iddi Ahdua day. Their hospitality was overwhelming and I had an amazing time in their house.

47. I feel a little bad about this one. After 2 days of waiting I was desperate to cross lake Turkana. When a boat finally appeared I was overjoyed. I went to the owner to discuss the price of passage. He quoted me a price 5 times higher than what I had been told by other villagers is fair. I was tired (it was 6am), impatient and very anxious to go, I really did not want to haggle. But in a moment of divine inspiration I said: “Very well, I will pay whatever you say. But you look into your heart and ask yourself if this is a fair price. If it is, god will undoubtedly reward you, if not, well..”. He looked at me carefully, seemed to think about it and then…. took me for free.

48. Last but not least, I have to thank my family and Tom, even though their links with Africa are tenuous at best. Yet without their support, both emotional and material, I would never have made it to Africa in the first place.

Wednesday 5 January 2011

African Christmas Carol II

The list of selfless, kind acts bestowed upon me by Africans and Mzungus alike continues:

18. A very special mention needs to be made of Chris in Juba, a manager of one of the campsites. The campsites in Juba are not actually for camping as it turns out (but for self-contained permanent tents), so it was only thanks to him bending the rules that I could stay there for a fraction of the usual price (which is extortionate) in my own tent. Not only that, for the 5 days I was there he shared his food with me (matooke!), bought me sodas, allowed me to drive his car (admittedly he just did not like to drive himself and had to) and showed me the town. He treated me more like a daughter and a friend than a paying guest and I hope we will remain friends for a long time.

19. Juba
is full of friendly people and another such couple were the charming Ethiopians who were working in a stone quarry at the foot of the Juba J’bel. When I wandered onto their yard trying to find the way up the mountain they not only opened the locked back door for me to shorten my way but also invited me to tea should I make it back from the top in one piece. I did, and the tea, hot and sweet, was a much appreciated gift. As was their company and stories of Juba they shared.

20. To get to the said quarry I had to walk a rather long way from the edge of Juba in blistering sun. I thought I did not mind the walk until I felt quite dizzy and light-headed. Luckily, in the very same moment a car pulled up and a busines-like looking Egyptian enquired with bewilderment and disbelief as to the purpose of my ambling on the side of the road. Although he could not believe I just want to climb a mountain, and especially in that heat, he offered me a lift to the foot of it – even though he was much more convinced I should be going back to where I came from (and that means my hotel not Europe).

21. Thanks to another small but very touching gesture I obtained a pillow from a fellow-traveller. Hamish (his hat pictured), a New Zealander, was leaving for his green island; his tent disappeared from the Mombasa backpackers silently in the middle of the night and all that was left of Hamish was a pillow carefully balanced on the top of my tent. It served me faithfully for over 5 weeks!

22. In a matatu in Juba a lady who I smiled at apologetically (I was very dirty for climbing from the hill and was afraid I will get her spick and span clothes soiled) paid the fare for me before I could realise and protest. She too told me it is silly and of no practical value to hike up the hill.

23. Even thought I have already made an aggregated mention of those nice people who gave me lifts in their means of transport, Khalid and Saddam need to be mentioned separately. They have not only given me a lift, but also, as I recount in the previous post, paid for my hotel, fed me in a local restaurant and then went on a detour to put me safely on a boat to Lamu. And all that while telling me lots of interesting things about Kenya and its construction business.

24. On the very same matatu that saw me fighting with my hair I was given, by a different lady, a bottle of water. She was buying one for herself and only thought it natural to buy one for me too.

25. and 26. Food sharing is a strong social obligation in East Africa. I was told a story of a big man who was rich and powerful but who was one day seen eating at a restaurant on his own – he did not invite those passing by to come and eat with him and from that day on lost his influence and his riches dwindled as he was no longer a trusted businessman. In Africa one either eats surreptitiously in one’s own hut or out in the open but then communally. Yet the prevalence of this social convention does not belittle the niceness of the many sharing gestures. Two instances are most vivid in my mind; the first was the sharing-game I played with a lady sitting next to me on a bus from Kabale to Kampala. I offered her a packet of biscuits, then she bought me a maize, I offered to buy her soda and she shared her peanuts. Then she bought a packet of fried locusts, which I shared only symbolically, claiming after two of the crunchy-munchies that I am already absolutely stuffed.
The second kind gesture occurred when I was lying half-dead from heat-exhaustion on a mattress in Soricho. A young, obviously very poor, couple came into my hut to also seek shade and sat down to lunch. On seeing that I am awake they edged closer shyily and laid the black plastic bag from which they were eating out in front of me. It is hard to describe how meagre both in quantity (hardly enough for the two of them) and in quality (crumbles of injera bread with few stringy pieces of goat-meat mixed in) their lunch was but they shared it with a glad heart nevertheless. I did not want to offend them by declining to part-take; I ate just a couple of mouthfuls and offered them biscuits I found in my pocket as my contribution.

27. I was often beckoned to sit down with people eating in local street-side kitchens but I usually declined. In Mbale however, I accepted an invitation to join a group of local men drinking at a big table. I would normally avoid such gatherings but I had just bought some food at the stalls and was looking in vain for a place to sit with my prized chicken and fries. Theirs was the only option. I naturally offered them my food but they declined. Instead they ordered me a drink and then another and then yet another and then insisted these are on them. They were admittedly quite drunk and eager to have a listener who wants to hear more about their views on local politics but this does not make their gift of beer any less kind-hearted.

29. Bill, a walking embodiment of traditional American values and dreams and a true son of the North-West Coast, brought a smile to my face when he expressed his sincere concern about my access to washing facilities. Convinced that as a backpacker I probably have to go around covered with mud due to lack of any decent showers (while I was walking around covered in mud out of my own free will) he offered me the use of the Serena Hotel luxury amenities (swimming pool!) after my Murchinson Falls trek. He also treated me to dinner in a lovely restaurant of the like I had no idea existed in Kampala and made sure I go back to my lavatorily-challenged backpackers hostel in a taxi rather than a boda-boda; alighting from a huge, black, shiny BMW with tinted windows and crawling into my tiny, muddy tent felt surreal and incongruent but I was touched by Bill’s, only slightly excessive, concern.

Tuesday 4 January 2011

African Christmas Carol

Still in the spirit of Christmas good-will and the nostalgic introspection that comes with the beginning of a New Year I have decided to compile a list of all the little acts of selfless kindness and altruism of which I had been a grateful recipient. Without them my journey would have not only been much less pleasant; parts of it would have not happened at all or other, nasty things might have happened.

I was away for 47 days; so here (in 3 instalments and with relevant links) are 47 acts of kindness, friendliness and charity from Africans and Mzungus alike, arranged in no particular order to prove that there is no place like Africa where hospitality is concerned!

1. The pride of place goes to Topol, Marcin and Phil, three lovely boys from Europe, who supported me with books, advice and contacts before I set off. They had made Uganda seem like a friendly and easy place to travel, which indeed it was.

2. Mama Habiba took me under her wing when I was stranded in Selicho, a small village on the shores of Lake Turkana. Her food was delicious and her smile lovely but what I will always remember most vividly were her touching little gestures of hospitality: the time she cleared out her things from the coolest hut during the unbearable midday heat and placed a mattress there for me to lie down or insistently offered me a small tetra-pack of pasteurised milk when she was worried that I was still hungry after the meal she had prepared.

3. Small but very thoughtful and of immense practical value (as those with long hair will understand) was the gesture of a fellow-lady-passenger, who, seeing my failed attempts to tie up my unruly hair with a blade of grass, got out of the matatu, untied one of her braids and handed me a hair-band that supported it. It was unexpected and very touching, as were the frequent attempts of local women to brush my hair away from my face and place them behind my ears!

4. The truck going from Longalani to Lodwar was so packed so full of passengers and dried fish that it was for a long time uncertain if there will be enough place for me even on top of the load. Luckily, just before it set off, I got a come-on from the driver to climb up and perch. Yet, before I did, an elderly man had got out of the driver’s cab and insisted I take his comfortable seat instead (travelling in the cab is usually twice as expensive as the cargo ‘seat’). When I protested and assured him I would be very comfortable sitting on the fish, he cut the discussion short with the sacrosanct and undisputable: “Please, you are our guest.”

5. I am very grateful to all the drivers on all the roads in all the countries who took me (for free or not) in their cars, motorbikes and boats. Special mention needs to be made of a boda-boda driver in Lodwar who offered to take me to a hotel for a few shillings when I alighted from a truck at 2am. When I declined and said I would walk (I don’t even know why I did that, as I had no idea where the hotel was, it was the middle of the night, my rucksack was heavy and the price he quoted was very reasonable) he sighed and told me he’ll take me for free as it is not safe for a girl to walk alone at night.

6. I am of course very grateful to the thieves who stole my phone and camera. Not for the thieving per se but for the fact that when I caught one of them and asked him kindly to give me my things back they came back after twenty minutes and returned my camera. They did not give the phone back but it’s the thought that counts. I am also grateful to the sellers at the stands nearby who gave me a seat while I waited for the pick-pockets to return and who, I am sure, exerted subtle pressure on the rascals to reconsider stealing from guileless mzungu girls.

7. I could not do half the things I did in Uganda if it wasn’t for the advice, contacts and support from Kizito Serumaga, the editor of Ggwanga newspaper. He is a very busy man but took time out of his busy schedule on a number of occasions to patiently explain the intricacies of Ugandan politics to a newcomer that just did not know the first thing about any of it.

8. Andy, who took me on a private boat safari in Murchinson Falls Park, lent me his camera when mine run out of battery and, most amazingly of all, delivered the forgotten, ice-cold beer to my retreat at the top of the Falls, will forever be held in grateful memory, especially on full-moon nights.

9. Without Hakim, the North Kenyan Godfather, and his extensive network of men and trucks, I would have never managed to get to the shores of Lake Turkana. Despite doubts about the sanity of my resolve and the chances of success, he elected to facilitate my search for transport and accommodation en route to Lake Turkana with all the means at his disposal, making it seem like a walk in the park, not a harassing trek though hundreds of miles of wilderness which it would have been without his help.

10. Abdrizzak and Abdoud (pictured with our lunch), were two of these men who on Hakim’s request helped me find transport from North Horr to Lake Turkana. Stranded on its shores without their company I would have been not only more clueless but also much lonelier. They went far beyond their call of duty, I’m certain of that, to make my stay in the North pleasant and interesting.

11. Peter and four other boys I hitched a ride with in Soroti helped me to organise a motorbike in the middle of the night so that I could continue my chase of Beti Kamya. Without their assurance who would have given their prized motorbike to a strange mzungu girl on a vague promise that she will bring it back the next day?

12. Alex from Mbale was unrelenting in his resolve to get my lost luggage back. Admittedly, he was the one who allowed it to be carried away into the unknown by four random Swiss people but his dedication and effort in getting it back have to be commended.

13. It was very nice of an airport staff member who I talked to in Lamu and whose name I cannot remember to indulge my whim and ask the pilot on my behalf to allow me to sit on the second pilot’s seat during the flight to Nairobi. It was nice of the pilot to agree.

14. A nice young student met on a bus helped me to find a hotel in Gulu and bargain the price down even though he was in a hurry to get home.

15. Another nice young student met in a matatu helped me to find my way, buy phone cards and fruit on my very first day in Kampala. And he too was in a hurry.

16. I was treated to lunch by a fellow truck traveller when we arrived in Marsabit. Joseph helped me find an internet café, attempted to organise onward transport and fed me in the nicest restaurant in town only because he knew I knew someone he knew.

17. Paul, a lovely half-Canadian, half-Iranian, half-Scottish (yes I know that does not add up) NGO worker in Torit, Sudan upon hearing that I posses neither a map of Sudan nor a vaguest inkling of its geography promised (and delivered) to print for me some of his maps of Sudan and Juba. And walked all the way to my hotel (twice) to hand them in.