The journey to Bunyoni Lake, from Nkingo Village, was quite an adventure. It took me a day and a half to cover the three hundred kilometres, not because of bad roads, but because of African transport. I waited for a matatu to collect me outside the guesthouse at dawn on the first day of the trip. When one came it seemed impossibly full, but they managed to squash me in. A matatu is like a minivan, which seats fourteen, with three rows of seats behind the driver. I counted twenty-six of us inside it on that journey - I had to put my head between my legs as there was one fellow sort-of leaning over me, and another half-sitting on me. Although I was incredibly uncomfortable, I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous the situation was. Adding to the comic value of this 36km journey, every hill we encountered meant we all had to bundle out onto the road, climb the hill as the old vehicle chugged up, and then squash ourselves all back inside. At one point we stopped as we had run out of petrol, and we were pushing the matatu up a hill so that we could coast down to a nearby village when a motorcyclist passed and sold us some of his.
Because of all these antics I missed the bus to Kabale (which is only 9km from the Lake), so I had to take a matatu to Kasese, about 100km away. This meant more waiting, as they don't run on a schedule, but instead only leave when full. I managed to get a bus from Kasese to Mbarara, which was lucky, as watching the countryside go by is much easier when sitting comfortably on a bus and not squashed into the middle of a matatu. The drive south was spectacular. We crossed the equator about twenty minutes out of Kasese, the next time I will cross it will be on my flight home. The road dropped in altitude, bringing us into the Rift Valley, where the landscape suddenly changed colour, from green to a golden yellow. We drove through Queen Elizabeth National Park, which was once one of Africa's greatest game reserves, home to elephants, buffaloes, kobs, hippos, waterbucks and topis, but nearly all these were killed by Obote and Amin's troops during their respective reigns.
Climbing out of the Rift Valley is always a pleasure, as below lie views of the vast patchwork of yellow and green plains. We had passed over a channel linking Lakes George and Edward, and now could see the views of the two lakes. Suddenly, then, it felt as if we were back in Uganda, for everything was green and matoke plantations lined the sides of the road and carpeted the rolling hills.
Arriving in Mbarara at about five I decided to sleep the night there, as it was another three hours at least to Kabale. Mbarara wasn't the most exciting of towns, it seemed to serve as a transport hub for south-westeren Uganda and a base for lots of big NGOs, in the richer outskirts of town. I didn't get up to much here, apart from spending some time online, eating a curry and having a beer in a bar, watching prostitutes watching men. My hotel there was a bit of a dive, looking back through the register I couldn't see any non-African guests who had stayed there in the past few weeks. When I woke up in the middle of the night I heard sounds that led me to believe it doubled up as a brothel. Thank God for earplugs!
The next day I got up before dawn to try to catch the first bus to Kabale, but upon arrival at the bus station I learned it had already left. So, I found a matatu that was going, and hopped in. Unfortunately I was the first customer, which meant I would have to wait for quite a while until it filled so that we could leave. We spent half an hour driving around town asking anyone with a bag if they wanted to go to Kabale, but had no luck. Then, we pulled into a petrol station, and saw there was another matatu that was nearly full, and Kabale-bound. It made no sense for me to be in the vehicle I was in, as if I got into the other one I'd be able to leave much sooner, and no-one was going to join me while the other one was leaving first. I apologized to the driver and told him I wanted to get out, as I didn't have all day to get to Kabale. To my surprise he locked the doors and sped off, keeping me prisoner inside! After a few minutes of shouting at him (while he coolly ignored me, driving further away) he eventually realized that I wasn't going to shut up, and he reluctantly brought me back to the other matatu. I got out, changed car, and was delighted when we left for Kabale almost immediately.
I ate a quick breakfast in Kabale, another fairly typical African town, with a long main street lined with one-story shacks and shops. It had one of the most aggressive populations of boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) drivers I've ever seen; they were screaming at me before I got out of the matatu, and three of them grabbed one of my bags when I got out, and nearly tore it in attempt to be the one who could hold it for me (thereby, in their heads, winning the right to be my driver). The final leg of my journey was an incredibly bumpy ride on a rough dirt track to Bunyoni Lake, on the back of a motorbike (no fun when you have a backpack and a small bag on your front, being thrown this way and that), driven by a lunatic. To make things even better it started to pour half-way there.
So after this marathon journey you can imagine my joy as we rose over the brow of a hill and below I had a view of Lake Bunyoni, stretching out gracefully between the rolling green hills, shimmering grey-blue in the rain. A few moments later we arrived at the campsite, and finally the trip was over. I had hoped to rent a tent here and pitch it in their grounds to save a bit of money, but was told they had stopped that service. So, instead, I took a "furnished tent", which was about 4x4m, high enough to walk around in, set on a high wooden decking, complete with a balcony and chairs so that I could sit and enjoy a view of the lake below. And if this wasn't enough, to make it even less of a "camping experience", inside the tent there were two comfortable beds (yes, beds!), a working lightbulb and switch, and - wait for it - a phone (for room service, or should I say tent service). So for the next few days I became "one of those campers" that my friend Peter and I used to hate when we lived in little tents in campsites for our college Summers in France. And I loved every moment of it.
The next two days were spent relaxing, reading and writing. The campsite had lovely gardens, right on the lake's shore, with immaculate lawns, flowerbeds containing roses, daffodils and more exotic flowers, and banana trees, with little bright yellow birds flitting around. The lake was safe to swim in (not to be taken for granted in Africa), and delightfully cool, as it is over 2,000m deep. The campsite was virtually empty too, which in lonelier times may have been a problem, but here I was happy in my own company, drinking cups of my Kericho tea, reading about Rwanda and its genocide (not exactly happy reading, but it's the next stop on my trip).
I went for a walk one afternoon, around the lake, and admired the beautiful landscape, with heavily cultivated hills (that sometimes reminded me of Pokhara in Nepal) around this most majestic of lakes, with its countless inlets and islands, stretching off into the horizon. Again I was struck by the frightening level of deforestation here, only patches of forest remain here and there on the hills, and they are constantly being eaten away. In a decade or two no trees will remain in this environment which should be naturally covered in forest. Oftentimes I think that some of the best NGO work that could be done for this continent is in ecological conservation.
I saw a sign, in English, for a nursery school and canteen, inviting me for a cold drink. Smelling an NGO, I followed the path it pointed to, which led me up a hill with wonderful views over the lake, upon which there was a newly built school. Here I was greeted by the canteen's cook, and he led me down there, where I drank a Fanta, and spoke with a colourfully dressed elderly Slovenian woman, who was working as a volunteer. She told me about the project, which has several branches. Primarily, it was set up to give financial support to the local schoolchildren, particularly to orphans. They also have craft workshops for local women, and then they sell those crafts so that the women may earn some money (important, she said, as too often local men drink whatever money there is left over after food is bought, making any sort of family savings impossible). They have a small museum and guesthouse in Kabale, and run simpler initiatives locally such as giving swimming lessons to children; apparently many drown in the lake every year as many can do little more than tread water. I found the project to be a good one, partly infected by this woman's enthusiasm and passion for her work, and happy to see a woman in her sixties who looked the picture of health, and who acted only half her age.
When she left I spoke for a while with the chef, who told me of his plans to start a cookery school. His only problem (as usual), was lack of capital. My sister recently emailed me asking me about Micro-Credit organizations in Africa, and if there were many and whether they were good or not. I have seen several of them, and have been meaning to ask around about them. Here was an opportunity to discuss them and I took it. The chef told me that they are popularly used, offering a considerably lower rate of interest than commercial banks (15%, instead of 20%, he thought). The only problem is that you need some sort of a guarantee, in the form of land or property (which would have ruled this system out for Nelson of Jinja, for example).
He kept talking about this "project", as he called it, using that NGO buzzword, and how he sought sponsorship from a mzungu like myself. I grew a little annoyed, asking him why he didn't get a loan to start things up himself, but he mumbled something about maybe not being able to repay it after. I asked him if he didn't expect to collect fees from his students, which would be his income, which he could use to repay the loan with. He replied that it would be difficult to know how many students he would get.
All this frustrated me, because in a sense this man's attitude encapsulated everything that is wrong with Africa. The culture of dependency that I so often refer to in this blog has caused this fellow to believe that all he needs is a half-workable "project" in order to get him a handout from some friendly white man. He doesn't need a working business plan (clearly it hasn't even crossed his mind to research the demand for such a school), as it will be saved from bankruptcy by the steady stream of donated cash to which he feels he is almost entitled. This culture of dependency is retarding African growth and development; this man's school could well work if he went about it carefully, had a plan, got a loan, and ran it professionally. Instead he expects it to happen for him, to fall onto his lap, a present from a charitable white man. I sincerely hope this never happens for him, and if it does I have no doubt that it will be an absolute disaster.
If this encounter wasn't enough, on my way home I had a nine-year old boy tag along with me, telling me all the way that he was an orphan and that he badly needed a European sponsor in order to help him pay for his studies. Not to question the child's needs, but he was already luckier than many African orphans in that he attended a school where orphans in particular were helped. I couldn't help but wonder had this project not in fact planted the thought in his mind that he was entitled to a sponsor, perhaps because of his preferential treatment, perhaps because other tourists like myself have visited the school and agreed to sponsor some of his peers. After leaving this child behind I was later enthusiastically greeted by a man in his early forties, who after asking how I was enquired if I had money to give him, for his children's education. I find nothing more pathetic than a fully grown, able-bodied man, who is not a professional beggar, begging. I asked him why he didn't work for his money, like anybody else, and he muttered something about falling from a tree and hurting his neck, which was supposed to excuse him from all forms of work. I left him, saying I had nothing to give, and walked back to my "tent", feeling rather depressed.
These dark thoughts were soon forgotten, however, after a relaxing swim and a few hours spent reading. The nights in Lake Bunyoni were delightfully cold, so cold that I needed extra blankets and wore pants and a sweater to bed; a little pleasure one enjoys when one grows used to sitting with beads of sweat streaming off every inch of the body at night, trying to muster the motivation to write another day's diary entry.
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