In Africa I had planned on writing a journal entry each day but it proved impossible because of there being no electricity in Alebtong.  I was able to charge my laptop with solar power at the Alebtong Health Centre but only turned the laptop on for downloading images.  The following are 2 entries I made before heading North of Kampala to Alebtong.  I did keep a Moleskin journal but have no plans of translating it to the computer!

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January 9th, 2009

I had planned to head North to A River Blue today but decided to wait because Dan and John, friends of Torrie’s, where enroute via bus from South Africa and we due to get into Kampala in the afternoon.  Dan has lived in South Africa for 3 years and has a wealth of African knowledge so I thought I would wait.  John’s brother married Dan’s sister and they in turn became good friends over time. John decided to fly from his home in New Mexico to travel throughout Africa with Dan.

Torrie and I ventured out with Florence, a kind, 25 year old African woman, and Tyler, an energetic, 21 year old American volunteering in Africa, to visit an African man at the Kampala Hospital who was injured in a boda boda accident.  James the Kid, a young preacher, also came with us.

A boda boda is a motorcycle driver (but sometimes a bicycle driver is more remote areas) and takes passengers for money.  It’s the fastest way to get around but it’s also dangerous.  Most drivers and passengers do not wear helmets.  There are no traffic signs and no stop lights.  It’s essentially every boda boda driver and taxi driver for himself.

The ward we visited in the hospital mostly contained boda boda drivers with severe leg wounds.

The man we visited had a large hole in his leg approx. 2″ in length and 3/4″ deep; it looked like a crevasse.  I had a difficult time understanding how this could be caused by a motorcycle accident and when we received his discharge papers, the doctor or nurse wrote that he had been shot, so who knows what the real story is.  Torrie was visiting him to change his bandages because often the health care service is expensive.  Many are not able to afford the cost and in turn are not properly cared for.

Side note: If you have seen The Last Kind of Scotland, the hospital we were in was where the hospital scenes were filmed.

Thereafter we went to the Kampala slum where Torrie has a friend that she’s helping to start selling coal as a micro-business.  It was incredible and quite sad to see the conditions that they people were living in.  Garbage everywhere, no bathrooms, no electricity, no proper disposal of food wastes, etc.

It was a bit strange exchanging all my USD for UGX (Ugandan Shillings) after visiting the slums but I needed to do so in order to have Ugandan money for the rest of the trip.  Before I left the States I withdrew $400 for my checking account.  I plan to use this money over the course of 2 months to pay for all my food, water, housing, taxi, bus, etc.  I may need to withdraw a bit more but I am definitely doing the best I can to be frugal.

We returned to the Come, Let’s Dance house and Torrie received a call that a girl named Mary, age 15, had jumped off the second story because she was possessed by demons.  Definitely something we would not associate with in Western culture but definitely something Ugandan’s strongly believe in.  Torrie immediately left with a friend to pick up Mary and they went to the hospital.  Later on we learned that Mary had broken her femur, an awful bone to break that will take a long time to heal, especially in an environment like Uganda where hard work goes into simple things like fetching water.

Dan and John arrived in the afternoon and we were able to catch up in the evening over a bit of rice and tomato sauce with onion, mushroom, and green pepper.  Both decided that they would like to remain in Kampala the next day to rest and also because it was Saturday, their day of Sabbath.

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January 10th, 2009

I received a call this morning from George, the man who I will be staying with at A River Blue (ARB) along with his wife, Josephine.  He was in Lira, a town outside Alebtong where ARB is based, and was waiting for me to arrive.  Not wanting to make him wait another day for me to arrive and wanting to head North as soon as I could, I decided I would leave Kampala and catch the bus.  It was crazy.  Driving into downtown Kampala was seriously wild.  People, cars, taxis, and bodas everywhere, and no organization for how it was to all flow.

Dan and John dropped me off near the bus station and I began searching for the bus to Lira.  The minute I arrived it was departing and I jumped on the bus.  But I had so much stuff (internal frame pack, small back pack, tripod, pelican case with the incredible donation from Fuji Film USA, and it definitely wasn’t all going to fit.  The guy on the bus wanted me to pay for 2 seats and I said I wasn’t paying for 2 seats repeatedly, only 1, and he finally put my bags beneath the bus where they belong.  We were on our way after a 1-2 hour traffic jam leaving Kampala.

The drive from Kampala to Lira is beautiful.  The landscape and people change so much during the distance from central Uganda (where Kampala is located) to northern Uganda (where Alebtong is located).  Many of the places in Kampala are homes for the ones that can afford them and dilapidated shacks for those who cannot.  The places in the North are both homes and small huts with mud walls and thatched roofs that from afar look perfectly circular in shape.  It is surreal to see.

Driving along the highway we crossed the Nile River and briefly were able to view Karuma Falls.  I was surprised to see how rapid and violent the water was moving given the fact that it is Uganda’s dry season.

A short while after I was reminded that although the drive is beautiful, it is also dangerous.  We passed a large rice truck that had either lost control or hit a vehicle or bicycle, and in doing so had thrown and scattered thousands of pounds of rice across the highway and surrounding grasses.  A woman had been killed in the accident and when we passed her body was being loaded into an ambulance by 2 officials.

The bus continued on and we arrived in Lira at about 7PM.  I was greeted by George and it was good to see him.  The minute you get off the bus there are tons of people wanting to help car your bags, taxi you wherever you’re going, etc.  It’s a kind gesture but also entirely overwhelming if you’re not used to it.  George and I slowly went to hotel via his motorcycle and a boda took the majority of my belongings on his bicycle.

I paid 36,000 shillings for a room (approx. $18 USD), checked in, and waiting for George to return from buying medication for someone but the store turned out to be closed.  When he arrived back we went downstairs to get a dinner of chicken, rice, banana, and soup.  I am not usually a fan of bananas but these were cooked into a consistency like mashed potatoes and I took a liking to them.

Tomorrow I head to Alebtong and ARB with George.  This is primarily where I will live for the next 40 days.

The Nile River and a portion of Karuma Falls.  I made this photograph 2 days before I left Uganda.

I’m sitting at JFK waiting for my flight to Syracuse. The picture below is what I looked like after motorcycling over 100km with George on dusty roads in Northern Uganda. It was taken on my second to last day in the North.

I had the pleasure of traveling with a wonderful Danish family for 3 days and 2 nights while taking a safari to Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s largest national park.  Pictured below is Morten and his daughter, Selma, while we traveled down the Nile River after seeing Murchison Falls.

While traveling with them I was reminded of the many memorable adventures I experienced with my own family while growing up, and I began to daydream about the countless travels Katie and I would experience with our own family one day.

I spent the last week traveling throughout Uganda. Now I am back in Lira and heading to Alebtong for 2 weeks where I will be teaching photography thanks to a generous donation by Fujifilm USA. February 16th I head back to America and I’m looking forward to seeing Katie, my family and friends, and starting a life in New York.

Sunrise at the Great Rift Valley in North Western Uganda.

I departed Syracuse, New York on Janury 6th for the first leg of my trip to JFK.  Minus a super hard landing, the flight was super smooth.  I made a few phone calls while at JFK and then was surprised to see the outfits that my crew would be wearing. Sweet outfits, eh?  I didn’t take this picture nor is this the actual crew, btw.

I highly recommend flying Emirates.

Emirates gives you a free hotel room when you have a layover between 8-24 hours but the thing you must do is ask for it while checking in.  They will not let you book it at the terminal.  I made this mistake and needed to go all the way back out through security, make the reservation, and then back through security again.  The person making a reservation ahead of me was Tommy Hilfiger.  No joke.  The Emirates employees said he was a kind, friendly, mellow guy — important traits to hold onto when you’re as successful as he is.

I have flown internationally before (Mexico, Costa Rica, and Panama) but never experienced anything like the Emirates flight.  The minute you walk onto the plane there’s this uplifting, ambient music playing with a woman’s vocals that roll up and down as if moving through a valley.  It presented a good feeling given the fact that I was about to be sitting in 1 place for 12 hours.  The crew reminded me of Jetblue’s crews; kind, friendly, funny, and down-to-earth, phenomenal.

The only thing I would caution is the food.  I had two meals while on the plane, first dinner and later breakfast, and it gave my stomach a very tough time.  After the meals were served there would literally be waiting lines for the bathrooms.  I’m not sure if it’s always like this or if we simply had a not-so-great batch of food.

The temperature was excellent, there were many tv and movie options, and the seats were larger than any I have ever sat in on an airplane.  And I was flying economy class.  I booked my flight about 14 days before I left and the cost was $1,600 USD round trip; a great price, in my opinion.  I waited awhile to book it because I wasn’t too sure when I wanted to depart and return, and because gasoline prices continued to decline along with our economy.

We departed a little behind schedule because the plane needed to be heavily de-iced.  We flew at approx. 41,000 feet above sea level and our top air speed was approx. 570mph.  It was the highest and fastest I have ever flown.  I also had the pleasure of flying on the world’s largest passenger airplane, an Airbus A-380.  While in JFK a girl next to me remarked that she had waited 12 hours versus taking a sooner plane just so she could fly on the A-380.  Apparently she’s into airplanes.

Time to catch a plane to Uganda.