Junket!

So last week I ventured out on my first work trip. A co-worker and I went to a town called Bushenyi to meet with some other non-profit organizations who are undertaking water and sanitation projects similar to ours. The meeting itself turned out to be, for the most part, a long bitch session. Normally, I don’t get much out of such get-togethers, but in this case, being the new kid, I actually found it pretty helpful in that I now have a much better understanding of the kinds of hurdles that exist in this line of work – from lack of follow-through by volunteers, to poor upkeep/monitoring, to outright government corruption. But today’s commentary will focus on the travel, not the meeting itself.

Originally, we thought we might be able to complete the trip in one day. It’d be a long day – Bushenyi is about six hours by bus/car from Kisoro by way of Mbarara – but potentially doable since we could leave Kisoro as early as 5am on Friday and the meeting was only supposed to take a couple hours. It was a long-shot, I knew, but since I figured that, worst case, I’d just have to stay one night in Mbarara and then could get on a bus first thing Saturday morning, I could get away with just packing a toothbrush.

Oops. First off, the meeting got shifted back to Saturday morning. Then it started three hours late. Then the meeting went long. After having lunch in Bushenyi at about 4pm, not reaching Mbarara even until twilight, and being convinced to wait for a free ride back in Kisoro by a partner organization instead of taking public transport (I was told we would leave at 9am – we left at 1pm) my fate was sealed: three full days on the road (for a single half-day meeting, mind you); one pair of undies.

As I relate to you the story of my trip, I will occasionally sprinkle in a bit of compare-and-contrast to what would have been a typical three-day work trip in my former life as a federal employee. I found myself doing a lot of that in real-time over those three days; plenty of time to stare out the window at the passing scenery and think.

I awoke at 4am on Friday in order to meet Charles, my travel companion, at the post office in town. We had to start sniffing out bus tickets early because Friday is a popular travel day to the capital, Kampala – the same direction we’re headed – and the buses would probably fill up early. In my former life, I’d have had my arrangements booked online weeks, if not months, ahead of time. Even here, we could have bought tickets the day before, but Charles doesn’t like to do that because the bus companies don’t always honour them, he says; best to make sure you’re actually sitting on the bus before you pay anybody anything. Unfortunately, it did, in fact, turn out to be a busy travel day; all buses full, no spaces for Charles and me.

We eventually managed to get on a matatu (mini-bus taxi) that would take as far as Kabale (half-way to final destination) at around 8am. Matatu rides cost about the same as bus rides, but are far less comfortable because they put between 18-24 people on a vehicle designed for 14. Our manifest that morning included a woman who was anxiously trying to catch up to one of those aforementioned buses, one that had left an hour earlier with her baby inside. I guess she had exited the bus and left the baby momentarily to relieve herself and came back to find that the bus had left. She was hysterical, of course. I still have no idea what happened after we parted ways in Kabale – how that story ended.

Anyways, after a three-hour layover in Kabale, Charles and Imade our connection via bus to Mbarara. Back home, I’d have had at least four cups of coffee in me by now, along with an Aunt Annie’s pretzel. Also, I would typically have purchased a little sleeve of those flavoured almonds to snack on during the plane ride. Here, I bought roasted maize and bananas through the window of the bus from street vendors in the towns and villages we passed through.

Our hotel the first night in Mbarara was clean and safe, but very, very basic. There was a bathroom, but no running water. The hotel staff would, however, bring a bucket of hot water from the kitchen upon request. I requested. Back home, after showering, I would usually go seek out the closest Thai restaurant, treat myself to a gin-and-tonic or two back in the hotel lounge, and then fall asleep with ESPN on the TV. Here, I ate millet, went back to my room, lit a candle, and started at the wall until I was bored/tired enough to fall asleep.

Charles and I met some folks from a local partner organization the next morning for the ride to Bushenyi. There were seven of us in that Honda Accord –a woman with her baby in the front, along with the driver, and then four grown men in the back. Back home, I would have either gotten on the subway or taken a cab by myself. The meeting was supposed to start at 10am. It started at 1pm. Afterwards, we all piled back into the Accord and made it back to Mbarara at about 5pm. I tired to get on a matatu in a last ditch effort to make it home that night, but just missed it.

Mbarara is hot. I was sweaty, something I never really experience in Kisoro, and had no clean cloths to put on. I decided that if I had to stay in Mbarara another night, I would make it my mission to find an affordable hotel with a hot shower. I did, and checked into Room #1, which I thought was kinda funny. It was my first hot shower in over three months and worth every penny. The water actually looked dirtier coming of my body, as if it were actually working better than the bucket-bathing I typically engage in. Probably not true, but I certainly felt cleaner than I had in a long time. Mission accomplished. The next order of business was finding a decent place to eat some Indian food and drink some gin. I was half successful: had a great dinner (the Indian food in Uganda is actually very good – some say the best Indian food anywhere outside of India), but no gin.

I was hoping to take another long, hot shower the next morning, but sadly, the hot water was off. In a defiant act of protest to the Gods, and as a matter of principal, I skipped my bath that day. I figured the stench from my now three-days-worth-of-sweat-filled cloths would have overpowered my clean skin anyways. What I did next was actually exactly what I would have done on the last day of a work trip back home: go and buy a cup of coffee, eat a scone, and read the local paper while waiting for my ride back home. It was an unexpected treat and I relished the sense of normalcy.

That ride home, remember, was supposed to leave at 9am. I was ready and waiting at the designated meeting place at 8am. Again, we left at 1pm. I got back to Kisoro just before nightfall on Sunday. I’ve never loved or appreciated my nice little hometown in the mountains more than I did that evening, when we crested the pass between Kabale and Kisoro and I caught, for the first time in three long days, a glimpse of my majestic friend, Muhabura.

One last note in way of comparison to that typical work trip back home - the difference in cost. Uganda is, of course, a lot cheaper than the US, but I often forget about that. When I first got here, I was always doing currency conversions in my head whenever I bought anything, big or small. I’d see a price tag for something, marvel at the low cost, and think to myself, “Wow, I can afford that!” which was often not the case. In my mind, I was still spending in Dollars, but unfortunately I had already stopped making Dollars and started making Shillings instead (I get about $300 a month to live on here). My first month in Kisoro, I overspent and had to live for almost two weeks on about $20. I pulled if off, but not by much. Now, I think almost exclusively in Shillings. But I was thinking about Dollars again towards the end of this trip. Here’s the tally with approximate US Dollar equivalents based on the last exchange rate I saw:

Transportation to Bushenyi: 18,000 USh / $9
Food/Drink, Day 1: 6,000 USh / $3
Hotel, Night 1: 16,000 Ush / $8
Food/Drink, Day 2: 10,000 Ush / $5 (splurged at Indian restaurant)
Hotel, Night 2: 30,000 Ush / $15 (splurged for shower)
Food/Drink, Day 3: 8,000 Ush / $4 (splurged for scone)
Transportation to Kisoro: 0 Ush / $0 (we hitched)

Grand total: 88,000 Ush / $44

The budget for a typical three-day work trip back home was over $1000.

I probably won’t check in again until after the holidays, so to all my friends and family back home…

Merry Christmas!

It’ll be very strange spending my favourite holiday so far from Kalispell, Montana, my parents’ home and the place I’ve celebrated Christmas each of the last 20 or so years save one. But thankfully, I’ve got some amazing things planned for the next couple of weeks and, more importantly, an amazing person to do those things with. Christmas in Uganda will be just fine. Just fine, indeed.