Day 1 Part Two: Kampala to Mpigi

"If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk with others." - East African Proverb

"Yes, I see that you are very tired. I will make it fast. So, the third stage is called 'bargaining'..." -Monica

"It's about saving life."- Hasa

Brendan and I have been slowly inching his balcony chairs ever further away from the encroaching sun—like an Attenborough time-lapse of starfish meandering across barnacled rocks to keep ahead of the receding tide—when Brendan sees a Toyota Spacio with large rainguards on the windows slowing in front of the building's driveway.
 "Ruth's here. Only twenty minutes late, not bad!" he says. Just then the driver, barely visible through the tinted glass but obviously tall and male, hits the accelerator and speeds off.
 "Welp, that definitely wasn't Ruth," I say, "Dude, what if she doesn't show up? How will I get to Mpigi?"
 "Relax man, transportation is not an issue in Uganda. Taxis go that way all day long," says Brendan supportively.
 "Alright, but I'd rather not be sardine-d into a taxi with 14 other people. Oh well. Whatever it takes, I guess."
 "She'll be here," Brendan replies with confidence.

 Brendan and I are perhaps an unlikely pair to have traveled halfway across the world together. I have a propensity for overthinking things, imagining every way in which the wheels can come off in any situation (no matter how innocuous), and for constructing highly detailed mental narratives regarding the complete and total destruction of everything I have ever known and loved for no reason whatsoever. Brendan, on the other hand, seems to genuinely exist in the here and now—full time. I find myself asking him litanies of very specific questions[19] as I seek to assuage my own anxiety. He is very patient with my talmudic style of reasoning but it is often clear that he cannot follow my mind to the same dark anxious places. He simply no longer speaks that language. Years of dedicated meditation practice and individual therapy have taken him from the depths of crippling agoraphobia and panic to the intrepid world traveler he is today. He is often more patient with me than I am with him. Somehow, we get along famously.

 Upon our return to the apartment, after the sphincter-tightening boda ride, I had changed (for a variety of reasons) into shorts and a tee shirt. It is now 2:45pm and I am thinking that Ruth must at least be on her way so I go into the apartment to get myself together for the trip to Mpigi. I am in the midst of changing back into my quasi-military adventure travel gear [20] when I hear the telltale scrape of Ruth's car making a carrier-landing on the driveway.
 "Ruth's here!" says Brendan from the balcony.
 "Shit. I'll be ready in a minute," I say feeling unprepared.
 "Don't sweat it. She's on our time now."

 I manage to make my way down the stairs without tripping. Fourth time's a charm. Charcoal man continues to fill bags, the DVD boys are now blasting something Latin-sounding, and my coffee cup and paper bag continue to languish in the culvert. We pile into Ruth's car as Brendan explains that he'll need to stop at Vodafone to get his cell phone working. At this point in the trip, neither one of us has a working phone. The Ugandan mobile system does not play well with our American equipment. Ruth advises that Soraya had texted her with feigned surprise that Brendan was not at the restaurant.The four kilometers between the apartment and said restaurant goes by much more quickly in the car than on foot, but about ten times as slow compared with our near-death boda experience. Traffic forces us to a natural stop in front of MF Foods and we see Soraya waving to us from under the awning. I slide over in the back seat as Soraya gets in the car. She introduces herself and reports that she had been waiting there for us since 12:45.
 "We were sitting right there for two hours! Don't even try to tell me you were there the whole time." says Brendan before adding "No fuckin' way!"

 Soraya is sticking to her story but the matter drops away as we discuss our plans for the rest of the day. We are to visit Kaleke Kasome, the charity that Soraya and Brendan are involved in, and meet its founder Maurice Hasa. Then, it'll just be a quick hop up the road and I'll be installed in my village. After several minutes of fighting dense traffic, Ruth pulls the car over to the left hand shoulder and parks next to a sign announcing No bodaboda with a red circle and line through a representation of a motorcycle. Brendan says "I'll be right back" as he exits the car, taking his life into his hands crossing the street. He then disappears into the shadows of a deep awning over the Vodafone store. Multitudes of pedestrians are flowing around the car like a stream around a rock. Many of them perform double-takes upon noticing the mzungu sweating in the back seat of this car. Taxis temporarily park inches from my window, their drivers and hype-men looking hungrily at Ruth and Soraya[21]. The heat is becoming intolerable yet Ruth admonishes me to keep my window up to ward off potential camera thieves.

 While we wait for Brendan, the three of us converse comfortably. I learn that Soraya is a founding member of Kaleke Kasome and was the 1st runner-up in the 2012 Miss Uganda pageant. As these long, balmy minutes tick by, Ruth and Soraya are increasingly speaking to each other in Luganda. I suspect they're cajoling Brendan in his absence as I hear his name interspersed between otherwise unintelligible words. Ruth decides to take a short walk to retrieve some ice cream against the broiling heat. When she returns, the ice cream is shared equally between the two of them. They offer some to me but I politely decline. There is a genuine quality to this interaction that is typically lacking back in the States. Sharing, here, seems to be a way of life and it is offered with sincerity and an expectation that one will partake. For the time being, however, I am being extremely conservative about victuals in order to safeguard against the dreaded but inevitable running stomach. So far, so good but the night is young.

 After what seems like an outrageous wait, Brendan returns to the car. Ruth and Soraya immediately start abusing him for taking so long and attribute the wait to his having been "talking with girls". This may or may not have been the case. Ruth fires up the Spacio and we merge courageously into traffic. We encounter the usual mixture of cars, large trucks, taxis, bodas, and pedestrians as the road begins to leave the city. Most of the larger vehicles are elaborately stenciled with religious or philosophical slogans. By my unscientific count, it seems that there is a roughly fifty-fifty distribution between Christian and Islamic sentiments. The foreboding Masha Allah!, familiar from this morning's near collision, now appears on an enormous petrol tanker. Bismillah is frequently represented as is Jesus Reigns. I am fairly handy with simple Arabic religious expressions but I rely on Ruth and Soraya to translate automotive adornments appearing in Luganda. I take a swing at pronouncing Olokoka ddi? placing the emphasis on the second syllable as is often the case with four syllable English words. Soraya corrects me by placing, to my ear, equal stress on all four syllables of the first word. She advises that this phrase means "When are you getting saved?", firmly putting it in the Christian category.

 The road opens before us leaving the dense traffic of Kampala in the hazy distance. I snap many pictures as we hurtle along gaining speed steadily. A woman in a long skirt is making her way to the shell of a brick building. She has a small child swaddled on her back and is balancing what appears to be a reasonably heavy load on top of her head. I have about one second to compose the shot as we race along. Thank god for fast shutter speeds. I see a round sign with the number 80 in a red circle. Looking over Ruth's shoulder I clock our current speed at 105kph.
 "Was that a speed limit sign?" I ask of all three of my companions.
 "Yes," is Ruth's simple response.
 "Do you ever get stopped by the police for speeding?"
 "Maybe if you were driving crazy but not just for speeding. Everybody does it," advises Ruth [22].

 Every K or so we pass a roadside stand where locals are selling their wares. Intricately woven baskets are stacked hourglass style next to gourds of various sizes. Loofahs hang at the end of tree branches. We pass a small hovel, next to which are parked a Toyota Hilux, two bodas, and the wreck of an old-style ambulance with a red sheet uselessly slung across its gaping interior. The now familiar brilliant white uniform of a traffic officer is dimly visible in the doorway. The Hilux is marked Police and has a blue and red lightbar on the roof. I am in the midst of thinking the phrase it doesn't look like they can handle much of an emergency when another police Hilux goes screaming past us in the oncoming lane. In the short bed of this truck there is a double-sided black vinyl bench. Each side of this bench contains two soldiers (for lack of a better term) rigged for combat. They are wearing dark blue and black urban camo fatigues and helmets. Each of them has a Kalashnikov, muzzle down, resting between their knees. The rear-most soldier, his arms casually folded over the butt of his rifle, looks directly at me as we pass. Having seen this, I strike the previous thought from my mental record. It seems that the Uganda Police Force is ready and able to deploy complete fire teams at a moment's notice. As we near Mpigi, I see several more of these trucks, often with three soldiers on each side of the bench instead of two. The UPF rolls deep.

 Having almost reached our destination, we decide to stop for provisions. Ruth pulls the car into one of the few open spaces in front of a small grocery store. The four of us get out and walk through the open doorway, beside which sits a security guard in a slightly disheveled navy blue uniform with gold epaulettes. He startles mildly and clutches his outrageously long and well-worn Mosin Nagant rifle as if the sound of our doors closing woke him from a deep sleep. Once inside, I am immediately drawn to a pyramid of five liter Rwenzori spring water jugs. I pick up two in each hand, devoting two fingers to each carry handle, and begin the short farmer's walk to the cash register which is a mere three meters away. I am intercepted halfway there by two Ugandan teenagers who pry the water jugs from my fingers and carry them the remaining distance to the counter. They smile at me before dispersing back into the aisles to complete whatever tasks they had been attending to. As I ask the proprietor behind the register—a middle-aged Chinese woman—if I pay here for the bananas displayed outside, I see Soraya coming to the counter with an armload of snacks and sundry items. The johnny-on-the-spot teenagers are nowhere in sight to help Soraya. There is a sort of colonial feeling about the service I received and Soraya didn't [23] that leaves a cold lump in the pit of my stomach.

 The Chinese woman rings me up and explains that the banana stand is not affiliated with this establishment. I stuff my change into my wallet and turn to pick up my water jugs. The teenagers materialize out of thin air and will hear none of it as I explain that I'm quite comfortable carrying my items by myself. I now follow as the lads take my water out to Ruth's car and load the heavy bottles into the trunk. They smile expectantly at me so I divide the coins in my pocket between them[24]. They both trouser the coins in unison and run back inside. Soraya emerges from the store carrying her purchases in two plastic bags. She informs me that she already bought a bunch of bananas from the stand for me. I thank her as we all get back into Ruth's car. Soraya is daintily munching some sort of snack from a thin clear plastic bag. She turns to me smiling and says "Want some?" I say "sure", my peripheral vision identifying the snacks as cashews or something of that ilk. As I reach into the bag, the picture comes into focus and I am somewhat shocked to learn that it contains a few hundred deep-fried grasshoppers. The handful I was about to take drains through my fingers as I decide to eat only one. I pop the little guy into my mouth and begin chewing with a bemused smile on my face. Not bad. A little stale but not bad. "Mmph, turmeric," I say around the masticated chitinous parts of the bug's exoskeleton. Soraya nods approvingly. 

 Soon we leave the relative comfort (if not safety) of the highway and begin trundling along the red dirt roads of Mpigi. As we slowly negotiate craters and channels carved into the road, bodas pass us by at alarming speed, leaving trails of thick red dust rising skyward. Shepherds lead teams of livestock from their daily grazing sites. Clusters of forlorn dwellings give way to larger buildings as we approach Mpigi's small but dense and energetic market district. Ruth heaves the car over to the shoulder at Brendan's request and shuts it down. "I just need to pick up a few things for Hasa," says Brendan as the four of us step out of the car and into the dust and bustle of the market. We are parked next to a boda stage where there are more bodas than riders in evidence. Taxis come groaning down the road, slowing briefly to entice any would-be passengers.

 A deep culvert separates the road from the shops. We cross rickety lengths of gray plywood and flakeboard which are laid across the trench as ad-hoc footbridges before ascending the crudely carved clay stairs that lead up to the shops. There are a few flea-market style tents near the road which appear to have no other purpose than to shelter the townsfolk from the last leaking gasps of the rainy season. The smell of charcoal from several improvised barbecue grills mixes with the dust and odors attendant to livestock to form a sweet and heady olfactory miasma which is, in truth, experienced with all five senses. Lacking any proper innate sense of direction and dazzled by the frantic insectoid motion of this place, I feel pleasantly disoriented [25]. I snap a few hurried photos as Brendan emerges from the shade of a dilapidated storefront carrying a large bag of rice and a stack of chapatis. He explains that these provisions are for Hasa, Kaleke Kasome's founder, who spends many consecutive days at the organization's small center and often forgoes eating if he feels it would delay his work.

 The sound and fury of the marketplace recede in Ruth's wing mirrors as we press on toward the village. Many narrow tracks and cowpaths switchback up and down like tributaries flowing from our hilly road. We stop periodically to allow teams of livestock to pass. The many bodas shooting by in both directions do not defer as we do and near-misses occur frequently. Eventually, as the car climbs steeply up the dusty two-track, a mobile-home sized stucco building appears over my right shoulder. A man in blue jeans and a striped tank top is leading a Sanga cow across the building's lawn with a long frayed rope of impressive diameter. The cow plods on disinterestedly, swiveling its massive horns rearward in lamentation of grazing yet unfinished. We come to a complete stop to allow this duo to proceed before Ruth negotiates a hairpin turn and parks the car in the grass.

 The sound of our doors closing causes several small children to emerge. They greet Brendan enthusiastically and look cautiously my way as I fiddle with my camera. This vanguard is followed closely by two adult men who are presently negotiating the concrete stairs as they come out of the building. One of the men is wearing faded jeans and a blue Rotary Club tee shirt. He smiles broadly as the pair approach. The second man's bearing radiates an intense and solemn energy. His gait is slow and rhythmic. His gaze is steady, evaluative, deliberate. Unbelievably, given the climate, he is wearing a knit winter hat and a thin white sweater over a pink long-sleeve collared shirt. This is Maurice Hasa, founder of Kaleke Kasome Children's Centre. He strides toward Brendan and they embrace. The man in the blue shirt introduces himself as Azariah and we shake hands in the African fashion. Brendan presents me to Hasa with a simple introduction.
 "It is so nice to finally meet you," says Hasa, his words spilling softly around the frozen ropes of his very direct and intense eye contact. "Equally," I respond, shaking his hand. Hasa and I had been chatting periodically via WhatsApp for several weeks before my arrival. The impression I had formed of him, though eminently positive, had not prepared me for the air of earnestness that is now deeply impressed upon me.

 These introductions complete, Hasa says "come" and leads us into the building for a brief tour. Upon entering, we are admitted into a medium sized room with lime green walls. There is a large mural of a man helping a small girl put on a pair of new shoes. Smaller and more numerous posters announce "Let girls learn!", "Girl Power Saturday", and "Men Against Defilement"[26], giving a sort of overview of the Center's raison d'etre. Hasa quietly narrates the purpose of each room as he leads us through the narrow hallway. Large, one meter diameter drums with goatskin heads are clustered invitingly in a corner next to a 73 key Casio keyboard. This is the music room. Hasa's voice is quiet and forceful as he explains some of the other activities that are part of the Center's programming. There is something deeply engaging about his manner. He pauses frequently, inserting "yes?", between every third or fourth sentence. I nod attentively. Azariah smiles.

 Months ago, when he first put me into contact with Hasa; Brendan gave me the briefest sketch of who this man is and what he represents. Maurice Hasa was a very popular Ugandan R&B singer with a promising and accelerating career in the music industry. His hit single Kaleke Kasome, now the appellation of the Children's Center, means "Let the girl go to school" in Luganda. Realizing that there weren't enough hours in the day to sustain his music career and his charitable work, Hasa simply walked away from a life of wealth and fame—a life that most Ugandans can only dream about [27]. Now he is leaning on the concrete wall of his small building, looking pensively out the window. There is something incredibly poignant about this tableau, the late afternoon light filtering through the open window into the tiny unlit room, Hasa's hand resting on the steel security bars that both adorn and defend, his benevolent thousand yard stare contrasting with Azariah's good-natured grin. I try futilely to capture the moment with my camera but it runs through my fingers like sand. A thousand pictures and a million words will never communicate the impact of this moment in time.

 "Come. I will show you the village and how our people are living," says Hasa beckoning us toward the exit. We walk down the concrete stairs and across the lawn, Ruth and Soraya in tow. A boy of no more than ten kicks a soccer ball our way as we walk; it whizzes by us and comes to rest under a creaking metal swingset. Hasa looks over his shoulder and gives the boy a mischievous smile. Azariah kicks the ball back. We continue down the potholed driveway (that had given Ruth some trouble on our way up) and cross the dusty main road. Flattened plastic Fanta bottles and other assorted detritus peak out from under the road's overgrown margins. We step carefully around cow patties camouflaged by the blowing red dust. Children materialize from places unseen and begin to follow. Soon our party numbers in the teens. Hasa reaches into a tall bush and extracts a perfectly straight walking stick. I wonder how or even if he knew it was there in the first place. As our retinue continues down a side street we are taking on the appearance of a flock of sorts. Hasa leads the way, walking stick in hand. Many children follow and frolic around him. I catch up to Brendan who is walking hand in hand with a small boy in a yellow collared shirt. I come up alongside the pair and the boy takes my right hand, his tiny grip holding on to my last two fingers. I have always been uncomfortable around children but the sweetness of this moment disarms me completely. If I did not come here to step boldly and thoroughly out of my comfort zone, then why have I come? I ponder this as the golden hour light sets flame to the western sky.

 The small shops we pass are closing in preparation for the equatorial darkness which falls like a curtain when the sun goes down. Soon we follow Hasa down a singletrack path worn into the grass and dirt by the passage of many feet. He pauses to examine the quality of a large ear of corn growing in a small plot. "We have big plans for this community. A grain mill. If these people are able to mill their own maize then they can feed themselves and have an income. Big plans," he trails off, continuing down the path. Tall trees and jungle-y brush begin to encroach to our sides. The boisterous voices and low thump thump of rap music blasted from shop windows recedes into the distance. Strange bird calls and the buzzes and clicks of a multitude of insects take their place. We come to a stop as Hasa explains that this is the route that girls as young as five years old must take to fill their family's jerry cans with water. A route that, sadly, leaves them alone and exposed to the whims of soulless child predators. Defilement. The word somehow sounds more appropriate, more sinister and evocative than the almost euphemistic language we use in the West. I suppress a shudder and fiddle with my camera settings to cleanse the thoughts and images from my mind. They retreat from the forefront but still they remain.

  Azariah looks down and draws our attention to a writhing sea of large black ants that are not at all pleased with our presence. "Eh! Ants!" he remarks, stomping his feet forcefully to dislodge the many insects that are now rapidly climbing up our legs. On cue, the children all begin stomping their feet and we start moving again, this time more quickly. The children's random stomping footfalls naturally coalesce into a marching unison that gives the impression of a tiny army. I am close to making a joke of this when I recall that armies of child soldiers—no older than these young ones—are an abominable reality in many African countries. Not long ago, the child slave armies of Joseph Kony terrorized the north of this very nation. Unbidden, radio pioneer David Sarnoff's quote enters my mind: "Let us not paralyze our capacity for good by brooding of man's capacity for evil". I look up to see Hasa smiling as he musses the hair of a small boy with his left hand. The other children are orbiting him, smiling, poking, gamboling freely in the calm of his wake. My eyes begin to well up. Not for the last time.

 We arrive at the village well. a muddy concrete structure with several stairs leading down to a shallow pool of water. Brendan is attended by an almost equal number of children as Hasa; among them is a small girl called Maria whose clothing and school fees he sponsors. "Let's get a picture," Hasa says, herding the party down the few stairs of the well. Brendan remains off to one side but Hasa insists he joins the children on the steps. I have to redirect the entire group to the other side of the well in order to take advantage of the remaining light. I snap a few photos and show Hasa on my camera's screen. "Yes, it is good" is his simple response.  We leave the well by a different path and soon we are among the mud huts, pens, and brick houses of the village proper. Chickens roam freely, pecking at the ground and clucking disapprovingly at us. There are many small goats wandering through the village and standing awkwardly on gigantic anthills; the tiniest ones bleating plaintively as they aggressively nose under their mothers to nurse. Several columns of large black ants march with military precision, perhaps feeding the swarm through which we waded earlier. Dogs lounge on the red earth appearing content.

 We come to a small courtyard of sorts, nestled between a large brick house and several mud outbuildings. Hasa proceeds to collect and arrange a series of small wooden chairs and bids us to be seated. I remain standing in order to continue taking photographs. "The young girl who lives here became pregnant and had a child last year," Hasa explains in low tones. "She had been going to school but her grandmother wants her to remain in the village with the child now. We are working with the family so that the girl can continue her schooling." Soraya is now sitting next to the grandmother, holding her hand and conversing in Luganda. The young mother Hasa was describing emerges from the house with a woven mat. She lays the mat on the ground next to her grandmother's chair and sits. "Take a picture," says Hasa pointing to the girl. I compose the shot, feeling intrusive and voyeuristic. The girl looks at me through the lens and does not smile. There is a palpable energy between the girl and her grandmother, like two opposing magnets that repel each other for no other reason than the accident of their orientation in time and space. The girl sees the open door of a better future— just out of reach. The grandmother sees the girl's true and rightful place to be in the village: she is a mother now. Neither is necessarily wrong. Neither wishes anything less than a happy and fulfilling life for the other. Yet they are bound by their irreconcilable conceptions of what the future must be. As Terence McKenna was fond of saying: Culture is not your friend.


 After several minutes, Hasa stands and taps his walking stick on the dirt. This is our cue to press onward, back to the Children's Center. We say goodbye to the girl and her grandmother and continue up the trail, passing small plots of corn and short, broad leafed trees heavy with bunches of matoke. I am walking next to Azariah and we chat amiably. He is a dentist who volunteers his time and efforts at Kaleke Kasome. He asks how I am finding Uganda. I ramble for a minute, trying to aggregate the thoughts that writhe and swarm through my consciousness like the ants we had tread upon earlier. "I love it here," is perhaps the most coherent thought to emerge. "Every single thing I've seen is brand new to me and the wildlife is outrageous!" Azariah smiles warmly and says "that's good to hear". In punctuation of this exchange, a gigantic bird comes to a rambunctious and noisy landing in the top branches of the tree under which we are standing. The bird calls repetitively and noisily, sounding like a mallard on steroids...and meth. I backpedal furiously to get the angle for a shot, simultaneously raising the camera to my eye and trying to focus. Azariah can't help but laugh as I trip on a fallen branch and barely remain on my feet.
 "That's amazing! Look at that thing!" I say gleefully. Now Azariah is really laughing.
 "They are very common," he states, "Actually, kind of a nuisance." the last word broken into three syllables by the escape of a few chuckles.
 "I just can't believe that everywhere I turn, I see something incredible. I love this place!"
 "You are most welcome," says Azariah turning to catch up with the group.

 We arrive back at the center and say our goodbyes with many handshakes and fraternal embraces. Hasa tells me that I am welcome to visit him at any time and says "If you need anything, I am right here" with the same earnestness that seems to characterize all of his speech. Brendan, Soraya, and I pile into Ruth's car as she turns the key. The sun has now set over the western hillside and a dull purple twilight illuminates the red and green landscape as we climb the rutted road. I am surprised that the trip from Kaleke Kasome to the place where I'll be billeted takes under one minute. As the road levels off, I am able to see a collection of barracks-style buildings and large circular huts with thatched roofs. A small sign pegged into the ground on a piece of lath reads People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are already doing it. This is SINA village: Social Innovation Academy.  Despite my penchant for preparedness and the exhaustive research I've done regarding Uganda and third world travel in general; I actually have very little idea of what goes on at SINA. Having determined that it is a safe place to stay with rustic if not primitive accommodations, I simply ended my investigation, thoroughly satisfied.

 Ruth drives past the barracks, the large huts, and an enormous brick building with garish green trim now only dimly visible in the failing light. She parks in front of some kind of elevated platform of obvious DIY construction and shuts the car off. Very few people are stirring and we stand next to the car for several minutes wondering how to "check in" to this place. The echoes of low voices carry across the open field as several small campfires crackle and scent the air with exotic-smelling wood smoke. I immediately notice the aroma to be virtually identical to a pipe tobacco called Latakia which is cured with the smoke of aromatic woods [28]. Savoring it, I proceed to unload my bags and provisions from Ruth's car. A young woman ambles by and we get her attention.
 "My friend Mike is here to check-in. He's registered under my name." says Brendan.
 "Oh ok. Let me go find someone for you," the girl reports appearing a little taken aback. She reverses direction and walks back toward the large circular huts, disappearing between two of them.

 The final minutes of visible light exhaust themselves, ringing the dinner bell for the most dangerous animal in all of Africa. Many of them have gathered stealthily in the shadows. They quickly fall upon us and begin slaking their bloodthirst on our defenseless party. The Anopheles mosquito, the primary vector for malaria, claims half a million lives each year in Africa alone. Modern mosquito nets and programs to distribute them to rural areas are responsible for this relatively low mortality rate. The presence of these nets in the huts where I'll be staying was a major selling point. I swat several of the little buggers as a young woman with very long braids approaches through the darkness. She introduces herself as Majo and beckons us to follow her to my hut. Brendan, Ruth, and Soraya assist me in carrying my twenty liters of water, bananas, and luggage as we walk under the shaky DIY raised platform just behind Ruth's car.

 Majo leads us through a small neighborhood of about ten huts connected with gravel walkways. We arrive at a small, square hut of mud brick construction. Majo produces a key from a pocket and unlocks the brass padlock on the hut's wooden door. I cannot help but feel some disappointment that my hut will not be of the more traditional circular mud-and-stick construction. As she opens the door, Majo advises that the solar electrical system is currently down. She flicks a light switch on and off to demonstrate this. The single light bulb suspended by a length of narrow-gauge lampcord in the center of the hut's conical ceiling remains inert. By the light of my headlamp, I see the hut's simple appointments consist of two steel twin bed frames, one with a mattress and mosquito net, a ten liter blue plastic bucket, a 25 liter yellow jerry can (intended for Diesel but used extensively in Africa for water), and a small three-legged stool-like table which is upholstered in goat skin. I set my bags down and explain to Majo that I have no earthly idea how to operate the mosquito net which is currently twisted and tied in a compact bundle, swaying over my soon-to-be bed. She undoes the knot at the bottom of the bundle and the pink gossamer material spills silently downward reaching the ground. She stretches the ends over the bed frame and expertly tucks the excess under the mattress. I am impressed with her facility with this equipment, so alien to me.

 I am beginning to feel the effects of having been awake for the better part of 48 hours and the bed calls to me seductively. I somewhat rudely preempt Majo's explanation regarding the electrical system's likely rehabilitation and ask her to show me where the bathrooms are. A short walk of about ten meters brings us to a rectangular building with a corrugated steel roof. There are two stalls with creaking wooden doors which Majo advises are "for bathing". The remaining two stalls in this building are the toilets. I peek timidly behind the door of the first toilet to discover the typical African facilities—a twenty centimeter square hole in the tiled floor. Disturbed by my presence, many small flies blow out of the hole and begin buzzing around. The smell is as one would expect but, in my headlamp's small puddle of light, the stall does not seem overly filthy. I am quite pleasantly surprised to discover a mock-up of a western style toilet behind the next stall's door. This was effected by erecting a concrete box over the open pit and mortaring a plastic toilet seat onto its top. An equal if not greater number of flies call this stall home. Many of them are trapped, quivering in the elaborate webs of the many spindly black spiders in the corners of the concrete walls.

 Majo walks us back to my hut. "Please wait here and I will get someone to give you a tour," she says before hurriedly walking away into the darkness.
 "You good, bro? We're gonna take off," says Brendan appearing concerned.
 "Yes. I'm all set. Thanks so much for everything. I'll be in touch as soon as I can," I reply. I had been planning on using SINA's wifi to send messages to my wife and Brendan as needed but the wireless router obviously succumbed to the same fate of the electrical system. I will be incommunicado until either the grid comes back online or I can wangle a local cell phone. More pressingly than this, however, I am extremely disappointed that the light bulb in my hut will not light. I have been mentally preparing for much greater vicissitudes for months but I am thrown for a loop by my inability to get organized in my pitch black hut on this first night. This weighs heavily on my mind. I could, of course, sort all of my gear and provisions by headlamp and flashlight—but, like a child, I want it my way. As such, I sulk, feeling sorry for myself. The intrepid world traveler. Yeah, right. Brendan clearly reads these thoughts on my face as if they're projected, picture perfect and transparent.
 "You sure you're all set? You can come back to Kampala just for tonight if you need to," he says.
 "No way. I'll make the best of it. I think I'm just tired," I report, telling half the truth. If I did not come here to step boldly and thoroughly outside my comfort zone, then why have I come?

 After a round of hugs and general well-wishing; Brendan, Soraya, and Ruth are back in the Spacio. With a salute of closing doors and the sound of the four cylinder engine chugging back to life, they are off. I turn back toward my hut and take a few crunching steps on the gravel pathway when I hear an elated-sounding female voice rapidly approaching out of the gloom.
 "Mike! Mike! Hello!" A young woman of no more than 25 years and probably a little less than 1.5 meters in height is trotting merrily my way.
 "Hi, how are you?" I say, somewhat stunned and rapidly approaching desperation for a good night's sleep.
 "I am well, thank you! My name is Monica and I am very happy to be giving you the tour." she says enthusiastically.
 "That's great, Monica. I don't mean to be rude but I am extremely tired. Maybe you can just show me where to fill my jerry can and we can pick the rest of this up in the morning?" I am acutely concerned about causing offense, especially given that I've been here for less than 30 minutes, but I am having a difficult time imagining myself enjoying a tour of the village, in complete darkness, and under intense air assault from malaria carrying mosquitoes.

 "This is the first time that I am giving the tour to a guest and I am very excited," she says through a smile that could easily replace my inoperative light bulb.
 "Monica, I promise you that I would have much more enthusiasm for this had I not been awake since early Friday morning. Can we please make it a brief tour?"
 "Yes! A brief tour it will be," she says leading me away from the huts and toward what appears to be the center of the football pitch sized area in the middle of the compound.
 Pointing to something that looks like a miniature greenhouse about the size of a dresser, Monica gushes "This is a drying box for matoke. We grow, harvest, and dry our own here!"
  I am having a difficult time matching Monica's effervescence and I'm becoming increasingly self conscious that my lack of patience is being telegraphed by my facial expression and body language [29].

 What I had failed to extract from Brendan and what I had glossed over in my own research was the fact that SINA is somewhat of an intentional community. Though the website is extremely clear regarding the Academy's raison, I had given most of my attention to the Airbnb page on which I had booked my stay. Through Monica's dauntless and fervent orientation spiel, it is now slowly dawning on me that I should have made it clear (during booking) that I am simply availing myself of their spartan accommodations and am not here to participate in the program. I look for a way to break this news as Monica continues.

 "Each scholar has his or her own project and the mentors help us with personal and professional development! They are making clothing out of upcycled materials in this hut!" she enthuses.
 I smile around my involuntarily closing eyelids and between overly aggressive swats at the swarms of malarial insects presently harrying every inch of exposed skin. Now Monica is elaborating at length on the overarching philosophical framework of the organization. I deliver a brutal open-palmed strike to the right side of my neck and am temporarily stunned as my carotid artery, scandalized, takes a second to recover from the blow. It seems I am providing an unsolicited practical demonstration as this violence interrupts my amiable tour guide. "The second stage is called 'anger'," Monica continues, her eyes widening dramatically as my palm comes away from my neck pasted with no less than four crushed mosquitoes.
 "Monica, I am so sorry. I have been awake for 48 hours and I am desperate to get some sleep. Can we please do this tomorrow?" I plead.
 "Yes, I see that you are very tired. I will make it fast. So, the third stage is called 'bargaining'," she carries on, unfazed. In due course, she completes her explication of Kubler-Ross and its implications for the lives of SINA's scholars. It is abundantly clear that her presentation has barely reached operating temperature when she reluctantly accedes to my increasingly despairing pleas for my release. She shakes my hand in the Western fashion and bids me a good night. As her slight frame evaporates into the darkness, she turns smiling and says "See you at morning meeting!"

 I teeter toward my hut, groping my way through the darkness and mumbling I do this shit for a living. I didn't come to Africa to go to morning meeting. My headlamp illuminates the wooden door of my hut as I fumble through my pockets for the padlock's large key. The word Zambia is stenciled in black spray paint at eye level—each hut being named for a country in Sub-Saharan Africa. I turn the key and the padlock gives way. An extremely loud scraping sound echoes through the sleepy village as I push my door open, its bottom dragging on the concrete floor. The light switch clicks uselessly between the on and off positions. Grid down. No light. I momentarily consider organizing my gear by headlamp-light but my exhaustion and childish disappointment sweep this notion aside. I strip off the shirt and pants that I've been wearing since leaving my house in Vermont early Friday morning. It is now Sunday evening and my watch reads 2047. I set an alarm for 0600 having made a commitment to see as many African sunrises as I can during my trip. Grateful that no-one is watching, I make several comedic attempts at parting the mosquito net that Majo had so expertly sealed my bed within. This slapstick concluded, I turn down the corner of the very thick down comforter with which the bed is equipped. Though the air has cooled significantly since the sun's departure, it is laden with the humidity from this morning's rains and, sweating mildly, I decide to sleep atop the covers. 

 Mere minutes ago my eyelids were losing a pitched battle with gravity. Now, as I lay on a foam mattress, on a steel bedframe, under the pink gossamer dome of the mosquito net, in a mud brick hut, on top of a hill in a very rural part of equatorial Africa; huge waves of anxiety erupt violently from the deepest recesses of my being. I am alone. Hopelessly far from my home. My phone is inoperable—I get up and furiously root through my backpack. My hands close around a tiny plastic bottle containing an assortment of OTC medications for a variety of eventualities. I dry-swallow 75mg of benadryl hoping that this infusion will speed the arrival of the morning. Laying down again, my mind is flooded with vivid vignettes of the many abandoned comforts of home. My wife's smile. The plaintive mewing of our cats around feeding times. The warmth and light of our wood stove. The wild caterwauling of the many barred owls which roost and hunt in the thick woods that hem-in our small house. These images and sounds scroll rapidly through my consciousness, each one plunging daggers of homesickness deeper into my gut. I discover that I am breathing shallow quaking breaths and take steps to remedy this. As the minutes slowly pass, I welcome the disjointed hypnagogic thoughts that herald impending sleep. Mercifully, the curtain soon falls.

 My eyes open into groggy slits admitting the soft blue glow of first light that leaks through the open windows of my hut. I am overcome with relief as my eyes widen and take in the brightness of this African dawn. Amorphous shadows sway on the portion of the adjacent hut's thatched roof that is visible through the window. Must be overcast this morning, I think, noting the absence of the typically golden hues attendant to the rising sun. Maybe the sun's not over the horizon yet. I paw around my pillow, find my phone and check the time. I stare at the illuminated screen blinking in disbelief. It reads 2145. My heart sinks. 9:45 pm!? My near heroic dose of diphenhydramine certainly helped to usher me off into dreamland but it didn't take. I have been asleep for approximately one hour. I jump out of bed nearly taking down the mosquito net in my haste. Stepping outside, I am treated to the most brilliant display of vigorously twinkling stars that I have ever seen. The sky is so clear that starlight and a radiant half moon are sufficient to create the shadows that I was so sure implied the dawning of a new day. I should be in awe of this tremendously beautiful sight but I am crushed to be facing the prospect of a long sleepless night. I slip back into my hut, lifting the wooden door as I close it to avoid the ignominious scraping sound. Back in bed, I jam my earbuds in and cue up a playlist of the least overstimulating music downloaded onto my phone. 

 And so the night grinds on. Minute by sleepless minute. I listen to the two most recent Om records, the droning fuzz of distorted bass guitar and funereal quarter-note ride cymbal accents help to guide my thoughts away from the pull of homesick anxiety. Somewhere around midnight I switch to Dan Carlin's excellent Hardcore History podcast and while away several hours as he regales us with the brutal story of Genghis Khan's conquest of the Eastern Hemisphere. When the last episode ends I am too apathetic to play something else. Resigned to my fate, I simply stare upward tracking the movements of mosquitoes and the small beetles that cavort on the outside of the net. I am in the midst of a vortex of self-critical thoughts when my reverie is broken by a voice slowly crooning out a harmonic minor melody. For a second I cannot tell whether this is purely in my head, in my headphones, or coming from outside. I pluck my earbuds from my increasingly sore ear canals and quickly realize that the song is indeed coming from the outside and from some distance away. La ilaha illa allah echoes through the valley, each syllable ululating between semitones. This is Adhan, the Muslim call to prayer. It inspires faith in many, fear in some; but it is objectively beautiful. At the conclusion of my dark night of the soul it means relief. It means dawn has arrived. 


Continue to the next post!

~~~

Life goes on.

Baskets, gourds, and loofahs!

This guy has the loofah hookup. I'm not sure what the banana/matoke leaves are for.

Police station.

The UPF rolls deep.

The cows coming home.

The bustling market in Mpigi. Our driver, Ruth, in the foreground.

Kaleke Kasome. A humble building where many lives are changed for the better. 

Hasa and Azariah. Their lives are a testament to service and self-sacrifice. 

Hasa and kids.

The retinue expands.

Everybody loves Brendan.

Mpigi village well.

Azariah and a girl fetching water.

Outdoor kitchen wall construction. Local materials.

African dog relaxing.

Grandmother and Soraya. Granddaughter, now a mother herself, approaches with a woven mat.

Different futures collide.

Black-and-white casqued hornbill. One of the most exotic birds I've seen. Extremely common and considered a near-nuisance in Uganda.

______

[19]: A very abridged list: "What kind of noises would be abnormal to hear in the village at night—gunfire?"; "How many obviously rabid animals have you encountered on the road?"; "How bad are the toilets, like Worst Toilet In Scotland style, or not that bad?"; "What if I miss my flight?"; "What if I can't find my gate?"; "What if Ruth never shows up?"; "How many mzungus are arrested in one month?"; "Was that over the top?"; "Was that assertive enough?"; "What about eye contact?"...

[20]: As my friend Neil put it: "You finally have a use for all those tactical button-ups!" I was defenseless against this accusation.

[21]: By law, licensed taxis (which can be identified by a border of blue and white blocky stripes around the van's beltline) are allowed to stop anywhere on the road at any time. Each taxi has a sort of "hype man" who leans out the window and flogs rides at passers-by, remonstrates other drivers for failing to show deference to the exalted legal position of the Taxi, and generally hurls misogynistic comments at women.

[22]: In an August 2015 article titled "Kampala-Masaka Highway: Cursed or Flawed?", the Uganda Daily Monitor reports this road to be one of the most dangerous in the world in terms of traffic accidents.

[23]: After all, Soraya was the first runner-up in Miss Uganda and I'm just some asshole from New Jersey.

[24]: I'm really not sure how to feel about this interaction. On the one hand, I am unaccustomed to tipping for a service that I am energetically refusing; on the other hand, I expect that tips constitute a healthy percentage of the youngsters' income. The disparity between their treatment of me and non-mzungu clientele complicates these thoughts significantly. Should I have tipped at all? Was my tip of loose change insulting given my obvious means? Travel to the third world puts one in situations where the ethical territory is terra incognita and there is neither the time nor the information to make the "right" decision—whatever that may be. ...and this was a very, very trivial example.

[25]: I have also not slept properly in 48 hours. A few contorted and claustrophobic naps while a guest of Turkish Airlines has done little more than to temporarily stave off the worst ravages of sleep deprivation.

[26]: Defilement is a term referring to child molestation which, horribly, is an endemic problem to these rural areas for a variety of reasons. More on this later.

[27]: ...or most Americans, for that matter.

[28]: For an excellent idea of what these campfires smelled like, go to a tobacconist or drug store and take a whiff of the strongest "English" blended pipe tobacco you can find. These blends are made with a heavy dose of Latakia.

[29]: I am given to understand that it is not difficult to tell how I'm feeling in this manner. 

Day 1 Part 1: Entebbe to Kampala

"You're going to see light like you've never seen before!" -Mark Denoncour

"Ruth, if you were driving in the wrong direction on this road, how would you know?" -Author

"Ruth, I want to stop as soon as possible. I need donuts." -Brendan

Ruth is driving as the three of us depart the airport. The rising sun, hidden behind a dense layer of low dust-laden clouds, is casting an omnidirectional orange glow that gives a distinctly apocalyptic feel to the rapidly passing scenery. An intense, frog-choking rain begins to beat my window and seems to be causing tiny explosions as each fat drop impacts the layer of mud covering the road. When I first laid eyes on Ruth's car I took note of the particularly oversized rainguards on each window. I am now thankful for them as the temperature and humidity rise by the minute requiring me to keep the window cracked. I am sitting in the passenger-side rear seat of this vehicle, which happens to be on the left or port side for clarity's sake. Brendan is riding "shotgun" directly in front of me yet this unusual seating arrangement (from my American perspective) gives the impression that it is he who is driving. This causes me a few moments of alarm as he is gesticulating wildly with his hands while talking with Ruth. The radio serenades us with gentle crooning R&B which creates a bizarre backdrop to the frenzied sights visible through the windshield. Though traffic moves swiftly, the road is choked with taxis[3], heavy trucks, pedestrians, and countless motorcycles which are locally referred to as bodas[4]. These various vehicles are engaged in a literal race to find a clear lane of travel. As I look out the window, two bodas simultaneously pass our car on the left and the right. Ruth applies the brakes sharply as we rapidly approach a slowing flatbed truck. The two bodas criss-cross in front of our car and narrowly escape being crushed as the large truck accelerates once again. Seconds later, a taxi stacked to the gills with passengers and luggage passes a drab tan Land Rover in the oncoming lane, enters our lane, and begins a game of high speed head-on chicken before swerving to avoid us at the last minute. Ruth is completely nonplussed. She is singing along softly with the radio and periodically reaches down to check her phone for messages. These near head-on collisions occur with  such an alarming frequency  that it doesn't take long for the half-life of my abject terror to winnow down to a duration manageable enough to permit me to speak. "Ruth," I say, "if you were driving in the wrong direction on this road, how would you know?" She laughs politely but otherwise declines to answer.

 The rain stops suddenly as we pull into a petrol station and convenience store. Getting out of the car, it takes me a few seconds to stretch my weary body into a position sufficiently upright for walking. A group of hadada ibis wheels over the parking lot emitting an extremely loud and raucous series of calls which sound like antagonistic laughter. I instinctively reach for my camera but it remains in my backpack in Ruth's car. Ruth looks at me and smiles as if, up until this very point, she did not believe Brendan regarding my obsession with birds. We enter the store. Brendan is examining a display of curiously small bananas which are shrink-wrapped on foam trays. Ruth waits in the car, communicating with her Uber driver group on WhatsApp. I locate a 1.5 liter bottle of Rwenzori spring water and begin the hunt for coffee. There is a large glass case filled with delicious looking plain donuts and various other simply prepared pastries. Above it hangs a menu advertising a variety of espresso drinks. I ask the young man behind the counter if they have any black coffee. He pivots to the espresso maker and begins making what will turn out to be an Americano. Even better. I advise that I'll take it fresh from the machine without any cream or sugar. "No sugar?!" he demands, appalled.
 "No sir, this is for medicinal purposes. I'll take it black." He shakes his head in wonder as he hands me the searingly hot paper cup. "On second thought," I say, "I'll also take one of those donuts please". He extracts a donut from the case, wraps it carefully with a paper towel and pops it into a small microwave oven for 30 seconds. When he hands it to me, I see the paper towel is generously spotted with oil. I haven't eaten anything since Turkish Airlines provided me with scrambled eggs and hummus somewhere over the Balkan states about 18 hours ago. I am ravenous but for the sake of decorum, I decide to pay for my items before consuming them like an animal. The cash register display reads 10,000 when the clerk rings me up[5].  I give him a fifty (thousand) and he hands me several multi-colored bills of different physical sizes for change. I stuff these into my throw-away wallet[6] and we head out the door.

 The clouds are dispersing rapidly as we continue driving toward Kampala; Uganda's capital and largest city. Until now, the sights flashing by my window have been a mix of rural and suburban tableaux. Modern-looking buildings are under construction, encased in shaky bamboo scaffolding. Small livestock animals amble along the road's gutters sniffing at discarded banana peels and the plethora of rubbish that litters[7] the entire country. A Toyota MPV, festooned in the blue and white stripes of an official taxi is up to its wing mirrors in mud on the soft shoulder of the road. Minarets occasionally punctuate a horizon rarely broken by buildings of more than four stories. A boda rider is straddling the petrol tank of a late seventies Honda CB200 to accommodate his passengers: three small boys (all of whom appear to be under five years old) and their heavily pregnant mother. The mother confidently rides side saddle and is shielding the tiny screen of a flip phone from the strengthening sunlight with both hands. Needless to say, there is no helmet law. Men lacking uniforms of any sort walk sullenly through the remaining raindrops carrying ancient Russian bolt-action rifles. Ruth advises that these men are likely "private security" guards hired to protect small businesses and apartment buildings. One such individual has his rifle, this one lacking a trigger guard, casually resting on his shoulder. His right hand grips the barrel loosely near the muzzle which is pointing toward the ground at an angle so shallow that a bullet fired from it would likely travel tens of meters before impacting the soaking red earth. Survival is Job One. Safety is a luxury. I consume my donut with great relish as I contemplate this.

 As Ruth's car carries us closer to Kampala our surroundings become more urban. Buildings now reach higher into the changeable skies, traffic slows and becomes more dense, and there are many more pedestrians. I am eager to photograph everything I am seeing but as our speed decreases it becomes more likely that a pedestrian or boda rider will opportunistically snatch my camera or phone. I keep my camera lens-down between my knees and cover it with my hat, furtively raising it and "shooting from the hip" from time to time. We come to a rapid stop at what appears to be about a five-way interchange. Large trucks, cars, bodas, bicyclists, and pedestrians are all vying to make their various ways through the gridlock. In the middle of this automotive scrum stands a very tall man in an absolutely spotless crisp white military-style uniform. His white pants are expertly bloused into a shiny pair of combat boots and a black beret rests atop his head. He is variously pointing, shouting, waving, and wagging his finger remonstratively at each contestant that noses into the interchange. Periodically, he produces a small notepad from his pocket and writes something down. Amidst all of this chaos, I wonder how he decides one particular driver is culpable for any infraction. From my perspective, the whole display appears to be an exercise in completely unbridled bedlam.

 As we attempt a left hand turn, a taxi sidles up on the inside shoulder. We are so close that I could pluck a hair from the driver's nose without even straightening my arm fully. The taxi driver shouts a few angry words at Ruth in Luganda [9]. Ruth will give not one centimeter and continues to proceed into the maelstrom. The taxi driver utters a few more choice words but the interaction does not escalate. I am amazed at the conspicuous absence of road rage in this country. We are now traveling through the community of Ntinda and Brendan points out a small restaurant with a bright red awning. "That's where we'll get lunch. I figure we'll walk there later," he says.
 Ruth wrinkles her nose, "You are going to walk? It is a long way!"
 "It's not that bad. I do it all the time!", offers Brendan in rebuttal.
 "I'll reserve judgment until we get to your apartment," I say to Brendan, already feeling the astonishingly strong sun sapping my enthusiasm for long treks through the concrete jungle. Almost four kilometers later we pass a three story building with security bars on the windows and doors. The sign near the road reads "Najjera Hospital" and specifies a list of services. A red banner underneath announces "Open 24 Hours!". We proceed one more block, dodging bodas and pedestrians, before making a left onto Brendan's road.

 Very soon after turning onto the road we have to slow significantly to negotiate crater-sized potholes and huge eroded channels carved out by runoff from torrential rains. Ramshackle shops and hovels predominate this neighborhood but there are several less care-worn structures interspersed throughout. I can see no evidence of a larger logic at play in the distribution of desperately poor rooming houses-cum-storefronts and spanish-tile-and-stucco apartment buildings. One thing, however, is clear: those with interests in the more economically advantaged buildings are not screwing around in terms of security. High stuccoed walls are topped with a thick layer of mortar into which has been set thousands of jagged shards of broken glass. Where this irrefutably effective technique has not been employed, long sections of tightly coiled razor wire take its place. Sometimes both are in effect at the same time. After several minutes of weaving our car around potholes, sinkholes, and washed out shoulder (which brings to mind an old joke about how to tell a drunk driver in Africa[10]), we arrive at Brendan's apartment building. I know we have arrived 1) because Ruth is busy analyzing the best approach angle with which to vault the car over a very deep culvert that separates the building's driveway apron from the road and 2) because it is the only four story building on this road.

 The car revs dramatically and we are hurtled across the culvert. A sickly scraping noise is heard from underneath the car as it bottoms out on the driveway apron. Ruth squints as if in pain. It is approximately 9am when she throws the gear shift into the park position and we open the doors. I step out onto the very stylish pavers which make up the driveway/parking area in front of the building. I am immediately assaulted by the intensity of the equatorial sun. This is an entirely different animal than we are used to in the northern hemisphere. The sky is now perfectly clear and offers no resistance whatsoever to the powerful UV rays that reach the completion of their 150,000,000 kilometer journey on my bare forearms. The sensation is remarkably similar to being scorched over a barbecue grill when flipping steaks by hand. The ambient temperature is hot, for sure, but it is nothing that would be out of the question during a Vermont summer. It is the quality and power of the sun that makes it impossible to imagine one is anywhere else on earth than the equator.

 Not wanting to be impolite, I am holding the refuse from my donut and coffee purchase outside of Entebbe. There is not a trash can in sight. I look quizzically at Brendan and Ruth and say "what should I do with this?"
 "Just throw it on the ground," Ruth states helpfully. I look askance at them both.
 "Really!?" I inquire. My anti-litter cognitive dissonance is getting the better of me and preventing my hands from complying.
 "Yes. Really," comes the reply in unison. I am unable to think of a genteel way of doing this so I just huck the paper bag and coffee cup into the culvert with an overhand throw [11]. When in Rome, I guess.

 The front door of Brendan's apartment building is held open with a small wooden wedge. The three of us enter toting our backpacks and rolling luggage and are immediately relieved from the oppressiveness of the sun. Brendan points out a sort of bulletin board listing every apartment in the building. The word "taken" is written by hand next to each apartment number. "Full house," Brendan quips as we begin climbing the stairs. I take the first few stairs confidently, farmer's carrying luggage in both hands, then I trip and almost go ass over teakettle. Though the stairs are poured concrete with large ceramic tile set into them, they are of wildly varying heights. When we reach the third floor, Brendan unlocks a series of deadbolts as Ruth and I remove our shoes. I am immediately impressed upon entering. Large white floor tiles contrast nicely with the deep maroon walls. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, front and rear balcony, nice kitchen. All of this for a price that would make most apartment-hunting college graduates gnash their teeth with jealousy and frustration. That being said, there are 20mm iron bars on all of the windows and the door to the balcony is preceded by an extremely heavy welded iron security door that evokes a medieval portcullis. One is given to think that these measures might be a little over the top for the third floor. Then again, in the presence of sufficient desperation, it is not impossible to imagine the sound an improvised grappling hook might make as it catches on the balcony railing at 3am. I put these musings aside as we say goodbye to Ruth and bid her to return here no later than 2pm for our trip to Mpigi, the village where I'll be staying.

 Brendan immediately sets to work unpacking as I give myself a brief tour and step out on the balcony. The now familiar laughing call of the hadada ibis is heard as several of the birds alight on a spanish tile roof some few hundred meters away. I see what appears to be a mourning dove sitting idly on a telephone wire. Having had occasion to thoroughly peruse the bird book while we were in the air, I know that there are approximately ten species of dove native to this area, all of them very similar in appearance. I run inside and frantically dig through my bag to locate my binos. Returning to the balcony, I train the optics on the unsuspecting bird and am able to identify it as a red-eyed dove. As I fish in my pocket for my notepad I happen to glance down and across the street. Amidst the comings and goings and general bustle of the road, there are no less than four people staring up at me with expressions of abject wonder on their faces. I give a simpering wave and recede into the apartment. "Hey B, I think I'm attracting some attention on your balcony here," I announce.
 "Yeah man, these people are probably wondering what the hell a couple of mzungus are doing in this neighborhood," Brendan replies from the bedroom. "I'm home," he exhales to himself, sounding relieved.

 I devote the next hour or so the the project of getting organized. As is my wont, I have outfitted myself with the tools necessary for a worst-case-scenario survival situation in an alien land. Many of these items, being generally unfriendly to TSA regulations, were squirreled away in my checked luggage. I conduct a brief inventory [12] before redistributing the gear into the appropriate pockets and bags. Beginning months before our trip, Brendan had advised me that I probably would not want to sleep when we arrived regardless of how tired I was. Until now, I had childishly clung to my plan to get a few Zs before heading off to my village. Though I have been in-country for only a short time by now, my head is already reeling with the attempt to process all that I have seen. I put any idea of squandering this time by taking a nap firmly out of my mind. A shower, however, seems like a sufficient and necessary substitute.

 "I think I'm gonna take a shower, bro," I say to Brendan.
 "Do you want hot water?" he replies, "I'll turn on the switch for you."
 On the wall outside of the bathroom there is a toggle switch that says Lorenzetti. I look warily into the bathroom and see the same logo on the oversized shower head. Three twelve-gauge wires of varying color emerge from a tiny hole in the wall and are connected to the shower head through a bolus of black vinyl electrical tape. The whole arrangement provokes less confidence in on-demand hot water than in instantaneous accidental suicide. "Is this thing safe?" I ask; a phrase that will be repeated many times before my trip is concluded.
 "I dunno. It's so hot here I usually take cold showers," replies Brendan.
 "You know what? That's a fantastic idea."

 Feeling refreshed, I dress and join Brendan on the balcony. We sit on sturdy handmade cube-shaped wicker chairs which comprise two thirds of the furniture in Brendan's apartment. I casually rest my feet on the balcony railing for a moment until my calf can no longer stand being roasted by the mid-morning sun. A panoramic view of Kampala unfolds before us. A myriad of terracotta roofs dot the rolling landscape which is broken here and there by copses of deep greenery. Pale, earthy smog clings to the horizon, periodically pierced by radio and cell towers. I feel we are seated in the center of a coiled snake. Beautiful and terrible, dangerous in its apparent repose. Our ground-floor neighbors across the street are busy about their daily work. A man with several small children clinging to him is filling a bag with charcoal by hand. Women in long skirts arrange bunches of bananas, matoke [13], and other dry goods. Two young men huddle in the shade of a phone booth sized stall with a slab of rough-edged corrugated steel for a roof. They have placed two large stereo speakers out on the dirt sidewalk and are blasting what sounds like traditional East African music at improbable volume. Peering from my elevated vantage point into the booth, I see little more than a laptop and stacks of DVD cases. "These guys blast music literally all day," I remark to Brendan, "Doesn't it bother you?"
 "Nah man, I love it," he replies, "It let's me know there's life out there. Those guys burn pirated DVDs. They can get you any movie you want."

 We pass an hour or so in this fashion before deciding to venture out and get lunch. I screw my Sigma 18-250 lens onto my camera body, sling it over my shoulder and follow Brendan down the treacherous stairs. We spill out onto the pavers in front of the building and into a wall of stifling heat. My hat and long pants shield my skin from the sun's fury but my bare forearms immediately feel as if they're beginning to burn. I unbutton my sleeves and roll them down to the wrist. "You're gonna be hot as fuck dressed like that, " Brendan offers.
 "Probably, but I'll burn to a crisp otherwise," I say, shielding my eyes from the glare. Brendan is outfitted for this adventure in a white tee shirt, camo shorts, and flip flops. "How do you not get sunburned walking around like that?" I ask, incredulous.
 " I guess I'm just used to it."

  Brendan snugs a pair of large white headphones over his hat and begins walking up the shoulder. I follow closely, shadowing his every move and hoping that he possesses some undisclosed sixth sense that will prevent us from being run over by the many vehicles passing us in uncomfortable proximity. I do not have to take Brendan's word for the fact that it is extremely unusual for two mzungus to be casually walking through this neighborhood. The reactions and looks on the locals' faces endorse this idea fully. We are almost universally stared at. The overwhelming majority of passers-by hail us with waves and broad smiles. Children giggle. People loitering around the open storefronts gaze upon us neutrally. A small but very apparent percentage of people regard us with looks of out-and-out malice but we are not hassled in any way.

 The end of Brendan's red earth road gives way to sun-bleached tarmac as we hang a right onto the main drag.  We engage in a game of third-world Frogger as we pick our way through the swift-moving and boisterous traffic. I cannot help but whistle the Benny Hill theme as we narrowly avoid being run over by taxis and near-suicidal boda riders carrying all manner of passengers and trade goods. I keep my camera at chest height, raising it frequently to my eye to fire off a series of shots. This causes several near misses as my foot falls into a pothole, I trip over a chunk of concrete, and am briefly snagged on an errant length of barbed wire. Shortly after passing Najjera Hospital ("Ultra-Sound Scan Now Available!") we enter Brendan's old neighborhood of Kiwatuli. Immediately he is enthusiastically greeted by several passers-by who call him by name. We stop at a series of shops when Brendan runs up to a young woman and hugs her warmly. Others flock to the scene and many handshakes are exchanged. In front of this shop is a boda stage [14] where two boda guys are lounging on their bikes and enjoying a leisurely lunch. I ask these gentleman if they wouldn't mind being photographed as Brendan reunites with old friends. The first one sneers dismissively at me but then rotates to face the camera. I take a quick snap and thank him. Boda Guy #2 says "Wait!" as he tests out a few different poses. "Perfect," I announce. This seems to satisfy him as he holds position while I compose the shot. Returning to Brendan, he introduces me to his former neighbors and we exchange friendly handshakes [15].

 Several shops are daisy-chained together in this arrangement. Wares vary from local produce to bottled water and soda, washing soap, cell phone airtime cards, and just about anything else man-portable that one could think of. Clucks and crows are heard as chickens peck the ground; now furtively sneaking between my ankles, now running under parked bodas. There is a heartbeat to this place. A simultaneous sense of urgency and langour. This is the land of dichotomy. Wealth, poverty, energy, inertia, brotherly love and predatory greed are all equally at home here. I feel alien and yet welcome, like someone attending a dinner party where the guests are warm and friendly but the dishes are startling and bizarre. I am hungry to see more.

 It takes some effort for Brendan to break away from the small crowd that has accreted around him but presently we proceed down the street. As the neighborhood progresses the shops lining the road increase in size. They display their wares right on the edge of the sidewalk. The sounds of handsaws and sandpaper echo from the dark interior of a furniture shop. Many wooden bedframes with expertly turned spindles are stacked vertically next to intricately carved dressers and end tables. I avert my eyes away from the biting glare of an arc welder as we near a metalworking shop which is producing huge numbers of security shutters, doors, and gates with very aggressive anti-personnel features. Redundantly, the 2.5 meter iron fence which surrounds the shop is coiled tightly with razor wire. Sides of goat and sheep hang in the open windows of a tiny butcher shop attended only by flies.

 Brendan has once again retreated into the solace of his headphones and I follow him at some distance, taking many photographs. I am beginning to get a feel for the rhythm of this place as we now more confidently cross the busy street. Children giggle and whisper to each other conspiratorially as we encounter them. I stop a group and ask if I can take their picture. The kids snap into a pose on the sidewalk. Brendan presses on. I take the picture and show it to them on my camera's LCD screen. They laugh uproariously and run off exchanging pokes and jeers. A tree sporting many ripe jackfruit erupts from the sidewalk next to a gauche billboard for "Praise Court International Church".  Brendan turns to look for me and stops as I point my camera skyward to capture a black kite which is wheeling in tight circles at treetop level searching for prey. I trot up to Brendan after getting the shot but am immediately distracted by a loud chittering bird call. I go down to one knee to steady the camera and train the lens on a dead tree in the middle of a disused parking area. Two woodland kingfishers are cajoling each other while exploring holes a woodpecker must have created. I am deeply impressed with the bird life of the city of Kampala.

 By and by, we arrive at our destination. MF Foods is a small restaurant with outdoor seating under a broad red awning.We take the last table nearest the sidewalk and make ourselves comfortable. A very soft-spoken waitress with long braids greets us and smiles at Brendan, recognizing him from previous trips. She hands us menus but Brendan preempts her, saying "You know what I'll have. Rice and beans, Fanta, and a bottle of water". The waitress giggles timidly and looks my way. "Exact same thing," I report. We are supposed to meet up with Brendan's friends Soraya and Ashley who are to accompany us later on our trip to the village where I'll be staying. Traffic continues to flow at a fevered pace as cars, bodas, taxis, and large trucks weave around each other and the many pedestrians both on and off of the road. Brendan is in the midst of pointing out a wandering Maasai warrior in a brightly colored Shúkà [16] when our food arrives. We are each given a very large plate of steaming white rice with finely chopped carrots and spices. Next, a soup bowl half filled with red kidney beans and broth is set down on the table. The waitress delicately uncaps our Fantas and places bottles of Dasani brand water on the table. Following Brendan's lead, I dump the bowl of beans onto the rice and mix them thoroughly together. I am famished and proceed to inhale this simple but flavorful dish. I intend to casually sip my Fanta but end up chugging the whole bottle having just realized how thirsty I am. The waitress returns to check on us and I ask for another Fanta. She conceals a small chuckle and disappears to retrieve another.

 Brendan and I are lost in conversation for a time before he realizes, with some alarm, that Ashley and Soraya have yet to make their appearance. This concerns me specifically because Ashley was supposed to drive us back to Brendan's apartment and I am not entirely looking forward to repeating what ended up being a fairly long walk in the brutal midday sun [17]. The waitress removes our thoroughly cleaned plates as Brendan stands to survey any likely areas where Ashley may have parked. Looking across the road, I notice a very official looking security guard pacing in front of Stanbic Bank. His khaki uniform is pressed and starched. BDU-style pants are bloused into spit-shined combat boots which flash brightly in the sun. He is carrying a fairly modern AK-47 in the low ready position with his pointer finger indexed over the trigger guard. The safety is off. I casually place my camera on the table in an effort to snap a candid shot while avoiding detection. As soon as I do this the guard pivots on one heel, turns, and looks directly at me. Missed opportunity. I put my camera away and the guard returns to pacing a small circle on the blazing hot tarmac.

 My second Fanta appears as Brendan returns to the table. "Ruth is supposed to pick us up at my place around 2," he says, "I'm not sure what to think. If we wait any longer for Ashley we'll have to take a boda back. Are you up for that?"
 "I'll be honest," I say, "I'm terrified of the boda but I really don't want to walk all the way back to your apartment."
 "Alright, if Ashley shows up she can drive us. We'll wait another fifteen minutes and if she doesn't show, we'll take a boda back," says Brendan, appearing concerned. Fifteen minutes elapsed without the merest suggestion of Ashley or Soraya. We pay the bill, tip generously, and start for Brendan's apartment on foot. "This sun is outrageous," I say to Brendan.
 "Let's get a boda, man. You have to do it sometime," he replies. I consider this carefully.

 "Ok, fine. But I'm not riding two up...well, that would be three up, on a boda for my first time. I want to take two bodas and I want you to pick my boda guy," I say, sounding braver than I feel. Brendan agrees to these terms as we pass a boda stage where several riders are in heavy negotiations with prospective passengers. Crossing the street, we arrive at a less crowded stage where the three boda guys take an immediate interest in we two sweating mzungus. Brendan says "Najjera Hospital," holding up two fingers to indicate we'd like separate bodas. "How much?"
 "Three thousand," comes the reply with a tone of finality.
 "Three thousand!? Heeeell no! One thousand," says Brendan with feigned outrage. He leans in and says to me in a stage whisper, "You have to bargain."
 "Ok, two thousand," [18] the boda guy responds, as if we are forcibly robbing him.
 Just prior to this last utterance, a boda guy who had been biding his time at the back of the stage fires up his bike and wheels it right in front of me. "Najjera Hospital? Two thousand?" I say as my adrenal system begins its pre-flight check. Brendan hops on the back of his boda, an early 80's Yamaha XJ with what looks to be about a 400cc engine. The driver cracks the throttle, dumps the clutch, and the two of them disappear into the maelstrom. "Wow!" I say, "That was fast!" My boda guy ignores these superlatives and simply states "Get on."

 I throw my leg over the ripping hot black vinyl seat and am in the process of securing a hand-hold on the aptly named "sissy bar" when the driver revs the bike up to about ten grand and lets the clutch out none-too-gingerly. The combination of my fat ass hanging off of the rear of the bike and huge amounts of torque being mercilessly delivered to the driveshaft causes the front wheel to come off of the ground. In this fashion (i.e., doing a "wheelie"), we are propelled at incredible speed into a ruthless stream of traffic. Having almost fallen off of the bike, I frantically grab for the sissy bar in broad clawing motions. My left hand jabs under the bottom of the seat and I secure a death grip on a length of frame. This is not as bad as I thought it would be; it is very much worse. The sound of the engine moving through rapid gear changes remains about an octave above where you would want it for a nice leisurely ride about town. This boda guy is committed to keeping it in the "power band" for sure. We rocket up the left hand shoulder of the road and the driver begins to nose past a large white taxi with the phrase "Masha Allah!" colorfully stenciled on the rear window. Our front wheel is extremely close the the taxi's bumper and actually rubs several times. Ahead, and unbeknownst to us, an attractive woman wearing a colorful headwrap enters the roadway, crossing the street on foot. Perhaps out of deference to this woman's looks and quite possibly to avoid running her down, Masha Allah! panic brakes locking up all four wheels. At this point I am contemplating the irony of my imminent death being inflicted by a high-energy impact with a rear windshield cheerily announcing the Arabic sentiment "God has willed".

 But it was not my time to die. My quick thinking boda driver, seeking to avoid a costly traffic accident, drops a gear and throws the bike hard to the left. At this very instant, the aforementioned and temporarily stunned attractive woman, having collected herself sufficiently to complete her crossing of the street, emerges from the front of the taxi.This gives my fearless driver absolutely no pause whatsoever. He simply continues swerving to the left, scattering pedestrians, small children, and several chickens as we launch ourselves onto the fucking sidewalk. My hands are now completely numb from clutching the structural members of this motorcycle with an iron grip that only true howling terror can inspire. I fear that I may not be able to hold on for much longer. Continuing on the sidewalk at a completely inappropriate speed, we are fast approaching another boda stage from which, of course, several bodas are simultaneously departing. By now I feel that I truly understand my driver's psychology. Hell, we've already been through a lot together. And so, it comes as no surprise that his response to this imminent danger is to open the throttle savagely in an attempt to outrun the impending collision. This is partially successful as only the left mirror impacts one of the emerging bodas, canting it uselessly toward the ground.

 Returning to the actual road, it becomes evident that my intrepid boda guy does not see the advantages inherent in rear-view mirrors as he makes no attempt to correct its new angle. Several less dramatic near-misses ensue before we finally reach our destination. Brendan is already off of his boda and waits for me with a look of complete imperturbability on his face. I dismount, breathing heavily and sweating pure cortisol from every pore in my body. I pay my driver the agreed-upon 2,000 shillings and breathlessly advise "Let's do that again sometime". Brendan looks at me, his expression changing to one of both concern and mirth and asks, "So, how was it?"
 "One of the top five most terrifying experiences of my life. Easily."

 We walk a block past Najjera Hospital and hang a left on Brendan's road. The continuous stream of taxis, cars, bodas, and pedestrians carries on as before; the only evidence of the progression of time being the position of the sun. I notice the boys in the bootleg DVD booth are totally unconcerned that their speakers are clipping nastily with the incredible volume at which they are being asked to broadcast what now sounds like Ugandan hip-hop. The man we saw from the balcony earlier is still hand filling gigantic bags from a dwindling pile of charcoal. My coffee cup and donut bag remain where they landed in the culvert, gently nudged by the hot breeze. Ruth is nowhere to be found. We scale Brendan's uneven stairs and repair to the balcony to await her arrival.

~~~

The call of the Hadada Ibis is an incessant mocking laugh.

Brendan's gear for equatorial sun.

Everybody loves Brendan

Angry boda guy 1

Angry boda guy 2

Your one-stop security shutter shop!

Security measures at the security shop.

Aggressive anti-personnel door jambs now available!

The ubiquitous red clay of this region is used here for some purpose that I could not easily discern. Wild guess: the mud is smeared on the uncoated iron security products in lieu of more expensive methods of rust prevention such as spray paint.

Local, free-range protein!

Kampala kids posing. Brendan plods on.

Exotic fruits grow in the middle of this urban jungle.

Black kite is equally at home in the jungle, on the banks of the Nile, and in the city.

Palearctic migrant Woodland Kingfishers. 

Rice, beans, Fanta. Cheap, simple, delicious.

Brendan on a recce for Soraya and Ashley.

Continue to the next post!
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[3]:  MPV-style minivans into which are shoe-horned up to 14 people. Taxis do not necessarily have a regular schedule but simply leave when they are full. This is a very cost-effective mode of transportation that would be intolerable for anyone with even a touch of claustrophobia.

[4]: Boda is short for bodaboda, an onomatopoetic expression that evokes the sound these small Japanese motorcycles make. Many have 250cc or smaller engines. This is the primary mode of transportation in Uganda. They are cheap, unlikely to be hindered by the outrageous traffic jams which are a daily occurrence, and tremendously unsafe.

[5]: $2.85. Hell of a deal.

[6]: To guard against losing huge amounts of cash and important travel documents to a mugging, I have populated an old wallet with expired credit cards and only a "walking around" amount of cash. My passport, drivers' license, debit card, and primary store of cash are concealed in my passport wallet which is attached to a belt loop with a length of paracord and stuffed down the inside of my right pant leg.

[7]: Literally. Pun intended.

[8]: Safety is no accident.

[9]: Luganda is the most common native language in the southern half of Uganda. Other languages include English, Arabic, and various Nilotic and Sudanic dialects.

[10]: They drive down the road in a perfectly straight line.

[11]: In much of Uganda they do not lack for an effective waste management system. They lack a system of any sort whatsoever.

[12]: COMING SOON: exhaustive gear list for this adventure. Stay tuned.

[13]: A species of banana which are harvested green and mashed into a plantain-like dish. Somewhat of a national dish in Uganda and East Africa at large.

[14]: A boda stage is an area where boda riders congregate and wait for passengers.

[15]: East African Handshake; begin as you would a standard Western handshake. Grip firmly. Rotate up to an "arm wrestling"-style grip. Complete the process by returning to the traditional Western grip. This change of grips most often occurs once per interaction but depending on the enthusiasm of the greeting it can switch up and down as many as five times.

[16]: Traditional Maasai clothing. Essentially a sheet cleverly wrapped around the body; similar to a toga.

[17]: As friends of comparable size will endorse; a good pair of sport underwear goes a long way toward the prevention of chafing- but they're not magic.

[18]: This is the equivalent of 57 cents; a pittance for Brendan and I, but bargaining is endemic to the culture. Moreover, if (relatively) wealthy tourists make a habit of paying overinflated prices, it disrupts the local economy and drives prices up for those who truly cannot afford it. This will be evidenced later in the trip at a small market which caters to tourists.