A journey that was a beginning, and an end of who I was.
It was a different place then. One war was just over. Another simmered in the North where I was bound. Buildings were scarred by bullets and fire. Many stood as shells. But life was, as always,... life. People struggled, worked hard, and did business.
I hadn't yet met those people who live on today in my dreams. I was just trying to get on with my life, trying to get to my new park, another post in Africa. I didn't know where any of it would go.
I stood on a busy street above the "old" taxi park in Kampala in the early morning air. I had caught a taxi from Entebbe around sunrise and made the ride into the city in silence; my thoughts full of what the days ahead would bring. When I arrived downtown at seven o'clock the street was already busy with vendors setting up their impromptu roadside stands, people and bicycles careened around each other, and vehicles honking horns while pedestrians scattered in front of them. A noticeable haze hung over the city, product of both natural mist and woodsmoke, the scent of which seems to hang over all settlements in tropical Africa.
The street I stood on perched fifty feet above the rectangular gravel surfaced taxi park, with it's multitude of white minivans. The park was bounded by streets on all sides, mine being on the uphill side. Below me were hundreds of identical white japanese-made minivans, all unmarked, all bound for different destinations. From above I could see no way to determine which vehicle was going where. The taxis were arraigned in sinuous rows; between each line of vehicles a lane just wide enough for the arriving or departing vehicle to squeeze through. And moving all around the taxis was a tide of people; not a white face among them.
A din of voices rose from below into unintelligible roar. Already the noise of the city was unpleasantly loud compared to the calm of Entebbe. I knew I was supposed to catch the Masindi taxi at the "New" taxi park located about a block on the other side of this, the "Old" taxi park I now looked at, but I didn't know how to get there. Tightening my grip on my pack I descend into the chaos below, by way of crudely hewn steps cut into the steep red clay embankment, and ask directions. I started down, careful not to slip on the slick hardpacked clay soil, still wet from rain during the night.
Down on the floor of the taxi park I lost all perspective and was soon lost in a jumble of bodies intent on going different directions. I tried to keep moving in the direction I remembered should take me to the far side of the taxi park. Soon I was amid the taxis and the novelty of a white person wandering alone in the crowd attracted attention.
"Mzungu... where to?"
"Mzungu... where you want?
"Mzungu. Give my my money."
"Mzungu... kuja hapa." (Come here)
"Mzungu... are you lost?"
"Where to Mzungu?"
Soon about a dozen poorly dressed men were all competing to be "at my service," for a price. They were even shoving each other to get closer to me. Suddenly unnerved by all the attention I pressed ahead past the group, who responded with cat calls and laughter.
I squeezed between taxis parked so close together that I had to turn sideways. Looking around I noticed that some men wore a kind of a white frock over their clothes, and stood near a vehicle calling out a name over and over in a sing song voice. These men were older that the street youths who first accosted me when I entered the park, and looked trustworthy to me.
Many I noticed were Muslim, wearing a cap. Some were Tabliques, a branch of Islam, and they wore beards, caps, and rolled their trousers cuffed high above their ankle to avoid soiling them. One such man soon saw me and shouted out," Mzungu, where do you wish to go?"
"Masindi," I blurted out.
"Ah. You must go to the new taxi park.
"Go straight that way until you pass the bus park. It is past there on the right."
"Thank you Mzee," I replied.
He smiled at the honorific and resumed shouting.
Once I reached the far side of the taxi park I walked down the busy road along with a tide of pedestrians, bicycled, boda bodas, taxis just arriving or departing and the occasional lorry which revved its engine and honked to get people out of the way.
The Bus Park was interesting. It was much smaller than the main taxi park, but it made up for it's size in colorfulness. About a dozen brightly painted buses were parked in the lot. Each had vividly painted names on their side which I later learned indicated both the ownership and destination of the vehicle. Also many of the buses had signs indicating that they were "Videolized coaches." I later learned these had a TV and VCR up in the front of the bus in a wire cage hanging from the ceiling or built into a partition. These video coaches subjected their occupants to either nonstop kung-fu movies, or amateurish local music videos, at full volume for the duration of the journey. Needless to say I avoided them like the plague.
Beside the Bus Park was a sewage filled ditch about four feet wide. Here and there wooden planks bridged the gap and people bustled across to and fro, seemingly headless of the reak coming up from the sludge-like waters that flowed languidly below them.
Beyond the Bus Park lay the new taxi park. I crossed the ditch and passed the public latrine ( 50 =/ per use) before passing into the main expanse of the taxi Park itself. This one was much like the former, but this newer staging area is surrounded by shops on three sides. All was ordered chaos to my eyes. Men hawking wares, neatly suited businessmen and women passing through, voices calling out destinations, and all around the dust has begun to rise.
"Mzungu, where are you going?"
"Masindi Ssebo"
"You go just there," he said pointing to a taxi bus (Matatu) some 40 yards away. I picked it out immediately because the dhuka behind the vehicle had a prominent banner above it's wide door that read '" Masindi Dry Goods."
"Thank you Ssebo"
Even though I now knew where I was headed I was besieged by anxious to assist taxi turn-boys asking me where I was going. Some asked in english, but not a few asked in kiswahili, and I was glad that I was able to recognize and understand their questions. When I responded in kind, my answer was greeted with smiled and delighted laughter, and often as not a flurry of fast paced kiswahili that I couldn’t make heads or tails out of.
Reaching the vehicle, the operator got up from the bench in the shade where he had watched my approach.
"Masindi?"
"Yes Ssebo," I replied tiredly.
"Let me take your luggeges," he offered while beginning to help me off with my pack. I was a little nervous letting him take it out of my sight and load it into the rear of the taxi where the hatch back stood wide open. I walked around to watch where he was going to put it. He also watched me watching him, and I immediately understood that he was tired of the suspicions of whites regarding their bags. He didn't say anything, but I immediately trusted him and let him alone while he stuffed it in underneath the rear seat. I walked around the left side to the open sliding door and entered the vehicle.
There were a couple of people already waiting for the taxi to fill and depart. I choose the next to the last seat, mostly on the theory that if we're in a head-on collision the people in the first three rows are likely to be badly hurt, and that if we get rear ended all the baggage and a row of people will cushion the blow.
About eight-thirty we ready to go; a full complement of twentythree in a vehicle licensed to carry only fourteen. The last few minutes before departure are signaled by the driver getting into his seat and starting the vehicle. The turn-boy hurries to collect a few more passengers at the same time he directs people where to place their packages, children and selves. The driver gets out and walks away to haggle with a representative of the taxi park and they appear to haggle on a price to let the vehicle leave the Park. Sometimes this activity is accompanied by much hand waving and about-faces. Finally the discussion is over, an amount presumably agreed to and the driver gets back in slamming his door, and begins revving the engine.
He pulls forward a foot while passengers tired of being packed like sardines stand beside the door. They scramble in and the turn-boy, last to board, swings in sliding the door closed behind him, and sits in the lap of the unlucky passenger seated nearest the door.
The driver is looking for an avenue of escape amidst the passing vehicles and passengers. He inches out into the stream, revving his engine, pulling in his side mirrors where needed to scrape by a parked vehicle, and having words with other drivers trying to the same thing. At times a taxi park employee intervenes, waving one vehicle forward while standing bravely in front of another that's revving it's engine and lurching forward in fits and starts.
After five or ten minutes we manage to escape and attain the street which isn't much less crowded. Weaving our way through pedestrians, lorries, and bicycles loaded with all manner of goods soon we run down an empty side street and pick up speed. The cool air rushes in the windows cooling us off. It is only nine o'clock and already the day is getting hot. Out of the center of Kampala, we now pass under the dappled light cast through shade trees overhanging the street.
Relieved to be under way I settle back into my seat and look at unfamiliar streets lined by colonial buildings run down with neglect, rusting tin roofs a counter point to brightly painted wooden doors set amid flaking paint over concrete block and plaster.
Abruptly we pull into a petrol station to fill up for the journey north. The vehicle keeps running while a attendants, almost always young women, rush to fill the tank and banter a few words with the driver who they obviously talk to each day at this time. The we are off once again. Past Wandagaya and its huge outdoor furniture and produce markets, past numerous business centers....
The road to Gulu is pavement of varying degrees of intactness. Some stretches are being repaired and others are largely potholes and makeshift repairs.
I watch a landscape of rolling green hills punctuated by clusters of mud buildings and matoke patches and shambas. In the fields I can see men and women naked to the waist swinging hoes in the heat, silent windows to the past keeping a rhythm of cultivation unbroken since when?
Out of the tangled bush by the roadside I spot something ahead of us on the left side. I focus on it as we pass by and realize it is the ruined form of a tank, barrel pointing south, treads gone, turret rusting; a monument to a decade of war and sadness. It must be too heavy to remove I think. Later I wonder if people have left it as a reminder.
The further north we travel the browner the land becomes. The rolling hills give way to flat, and the palms and bananas are replaced by shorter savanna trees. Every half an hour we pass a largish village that has become a local trading center, complete with small hotel, restaurant, small bars, a petrol station, and a local police detachment. These small towns are characterized by one story brick buildings which have been "plastered" with cement, and painted- usually white or beige. The roofing is usually rusting corrugated iron sheeting. The smaller shops (dhukas) still are wattle and daub (mud and Sticks) with thatched roofs.
As we approach such a village we slow a bit as ahead people on bicycles, small boys herding cows and other lorries loom ahead. But before we pull even with the bustle of the village, I see what the driver has been angling towards. Under a shady tree, resting on carved three legged stools, are a number of policemen. As we pull to a stop in front of the spiked tire strip I hadn't noticed before, the youngest looking policeman, who is also the only one wearing a helmet in the heat, strides down to talk to our driver.
The passengers watch quietly to see what the police will do. Sometimes police will shake down a vehicle, forcing all passengers and baggage out of the vehicle for inspection. This is done ostensible to enforce the passenger load limit, but in reality is merely a game whose only mystery is is how much money will it take before the police let them on their way again. The young lieutenant wearily greets the driver and glances back into the grossly overloaded vehicle.
A see a few of my fellow passengers glance back at me. To see what I think of all this I wonder? The driver produces his license. It is looked at. He's asked to get out of the van, which he does. A kind of groaning sigh goes up from a few of the passengers. The officer and driver walk around the vehicle, the uniformed man pointing at all the vehicle deficits that he will have to write-up-for safety's sake. The policeman gestures that the side door should be opened and people begin to gather belongings and prepairing to exit the vehicle.
As the policeman walks past my window and sees my white face staring back at him he's obviously surprised to see a Mzungu this far into the bush on public transport, he disgustedly gestures to the turn-boy to get in the vehicle and close the door. To the driver he says something I gather to the equivalent of, "let that be a warning to you. We'll meet again soon." As the driver jumps in his seat and starts the engine, the lingala music starts back up, and some relieved laughter bubbles out. A couple people again look at me , and this time I get the joke. My presence kept them all from being shaken down by the cops.
As we pull away I get to thinking that probably the greatest service to commerce we expats could do for the people of this country would be to ride the matatu's endlessly, foiling the police in their extortion attempts.
We stop again a hundred meters further on in the village proper. As soon as we stop food vendors rush to the open windows thrusting muchomo (roast pork in a skewer), roast maize, roasted bananas (delicious), samosas, cold sodas, and sweet biscuits from Kenya with names like "Sukari." I buy some maize and a soda. I must pay extra if I plan on taking the bottle with me when we depart. I slam down the ice cold coca cola. There is a god, I think.
I hadn't yet met those people who live on today in my dreams. I was just trying to get on with my life, trying to get to my new park, another post in Africa. I didn't know where any of it would go.
I stood on a busy street above the "old" taxi park in Kampala in the early morning air. I had caught a taxi from Entebbe around sunrise and made the ride into the city in silence; my thoughts full of what the days ahead would bring. When I arrived downtown at seven o'clock the street was already busy with vendors setting up their impromptu roadside stands, people and bicycles careened around each other, and vehicles honking horns while pedestrians scattered in front of them. A noticeable haze hung over the city, product of both natural mist and woodsmoke, the scent of which seems to hang over all settlements in tropical Africa.
The street I stood on perched fifty feet above the rectangular gravel surfaced taxi park, with it's multitude of white minivans. The park was bounded by streets on all sides, mine being on the uphill side. Below me were hundreds of identical white japanese-made minivans, all unmarked, all bound for different destinations. From above I could see no way to determine which vehicle was going where. The taxis were arraigned in sinuous rows; between each line of vehicles a lane just wide enough for the arriving or departing vehicle to squeeze through. And moving all around the taxis was a tide of people; not a white face among them.
A din of voices rose from below into unintelligible roar. Already the noise of the city was unpleasantly loud compared to the calm of Entebbe. I knew I was supposed to catch the Masindi taxi at the "New" taxi park located about a block on the other side of this, the "Old" taxi park I now looked at, but I didn't know how to get there. Tightening my grip on my pack I descend into the chaos below, by way of crudely hewn steps cut into the steep red clay embankment, and ask directions. I started down, careful not to slip on the slick hardpacked clay soil, still wet from rain during the night.
Down on the floor of the taxi park I lost all perspective and was soon lost in a jumble of bodies intent on going different directions. I tried to keep moving in the direction I remembered should take me to the far side of the taxi park. Soon I was amid the taxis and the novelty of a white person wandering alone in the crowd attracted attention.
"Mzungu... where to?"
"Mzungu... where you want?
"Mzungu. Give my my money."
"Mzungu... kuja hapa." (Come here)
"Mzungu... are you lost?"
"Where to Mzungu?"
Soon about a dozen poorly dressed men were all competing to be "at my service," for a price. They were even shoving each other to get closer to me. Suddenly unnerved by all the attention I pressed ahead past the group, who responded with cat calls and laughter.
I squeezed between taxis parked so close together that I had to turn sideways. Looking around I noticed that some men wore a kind of a white frock over their clothes, and stood near a vehicle calling out a name over and over in a sing song voice. These men were older that the street youths who first accosted me when I entered the park, and looked trustworthy to me.
Many I noticed were Muslim, wearing a cap. Some were Tabliques, a branch of Islam, and they wore beards, caps, and rolled their trousers cuffed high above their ankle to avoid soiling them. One such man soon saw me and shouted out," Mzungu, where do you wish to go?"
"Masindi," I blurted out.
"Ah. You must go to the new taxi park.
"Go straight that way until you pass the bus park. It is past there on the right."
"Thank you Mzee," I replied.
He smiled at the honorific and resumed shouting.
Once I reached the far side of the taxi park I walked down the busy road along with a tide of pedestrians, bicycled, boda bodas, taxis just arriving or departing and the occasional lorry which revved its engine and honked to get people out of the way.
The Bus Park was interesting. It was much smaller than the main taxi park, but it made up for it's size in colorfulness. About a dozen brightly painted buses were parked in the lot. Each had vividly painted names on their side which I later learned indicated both the ownership and destination of the vehicle. Also many of the buses had signs indicating that they were "Videolized coaches." I later learned these had a TV and VCR up in the front of the bus in a wire cage hanging from the ceiling or built into a partition. These video coaches subjected their occupants to either nonstop kung-fu movies, or amateurish local music videos, at full volume for the duration of the journey. Needless to say I avoided them like the plague.
Beside the Bus Park was a sewage filled ditch about four feet wide. Here and there wooden planks bridged the gap and people bustled across to and fro, seemingly headless of the reak coming up from the sludge-like waters that flowed languidly below them.
Beyond the Bus Park lay the new taxi park. I crossed the ditch and passed the public latrine ( 50 =/ per use) before passing into the main expanse of the taxi Park itself. This one was much like the former, but this newer staging area is surrounded by shops on three sides. All was ordered chaos to my eyes. Men hawking wares, neatly suited businessmen and women passing through, voices calling out destinations, and all around the dust has begun to rise.
"Mzungu, where are you going?"
"Masindi Ssebo"
"You go just there," he said pointing to a taxi bus (Matatu) some 40 yards away. I picked it out immediately because the dhuka behind the vehicle had a prominent banner above it's wide door that read '" Masindi Dry Goods."
"Thank you Ssebo"
Even though I now knew where I was headed I was besieged by anxious to assist taxi turn-boys asking me where I was going. Some asked in english, but not a few asked in kiswahili, and I was glad that I was able to recognize and understand their questions. When I responded in kind, my answer was greeted with smiled and delighted laughter, and often as not a flurry of fast paced kiswahili that I couldn’t make heads or tails out of.
Reaching the vehicle, the operator got up from the bench in the shade where he had watched my approach.
"Masindi?"
"Yes Ssebo," I replied tiredly.
"Let me take your luggeges," he offered while beginning to help me off with my pack. I was a little nervous letting him take it out of my sight and load it into the rear of the taxi where the hatch back stood wide open. I walked around to watch where he was going to put it. He also watched me watching him, and I immediately understood that he was tired of the suspicions of whites regarding their bags. He didn't say anything, but I immediately trusted him and let him alone while he stuffed it in underneath the rear seat. I walked around the left side to the open sliding door and entered the vehicle.
There were a couple of people already waiting for the taxi to fill and depart. I choose the next to the last seat, mostly on the theory that if we're in a head-on collision the people in the first three rows are likely to be badly hurt, and that if we get rear ended all the baggage and a row of people will cushion the blow.
About eight-thirty we ready to go; a full complement of twentythree in a vehicle licensed to carry only fourteen. The last few minutes before departure are signaled by the driver getting into his seat and starting the vehicle. The turn-boy hurries to collect a few more passengers at the same time he directs people where to place their packages, children and selves. The driver gets out and walks away to haggle with a representative of the taxi park and they appear to haggle on a price to let the vehicle leave the Park. Sometimes this activity is accompanied by much hand waving and about-faces. Finally the discussion is over, an amount presumably agreed to and the driver gets back in slamming his door, and begins revving the engine.
He pulls forward a foot while passengers tired of being packed like sardines stand beside the door. They scramble in and the turn-boy, last to board, swings in sliding the door closed behind him, and sits in the lap of the unlucky passenger seated nearest the door.
The driver is looking for an avenue of escape amidst the passing vehicles and passengers. He inches out into the stream, revving his engine, pulling in his side mirrors where needed to scrape by a parked vehicle, and having words with other drivers trying to the same thing. At times a taxi park employee intervenes, waving one vehicle forward while standing bravely in front of another that's revving it's engine and lurching forward in fits and starts.
After five or ten minutes we manage to escape and attain the street which isn't much less crowded. Weaving our way through pedestrians, lorries, and bicycles loaded with all manner of goods soon we run down an empty side street and pick up speed. The cool air rushes in the windows cooling us off. It is only nine o'clock and already the day is getting hot. Out of the center of Kampala, we now pass under the dappled light cast through shade trees overhanging the street.
Relieved to be under way I settle back into my seat and look at unfamiliar streets lined by colonial buildings run down with neglect, rusting tin roofs a counter point to brightly painted wooden doors set amid flaking paint over concrete block and plaster.
Abruptly we pull into a petrol station to fill up for the journey north. The vehicle keeps running while a attendants, almost always young women, rush to fill the tank and banter a few words with the driver who they obviously talk to each day at this time. The we are off once again. Past Wandagaya and its huge outdoor furniture and produce markets, past numerous business centers....
The road to Gulu is pavement of varying degrees of intactness. Some stretches are being repaired and others are largely potholes and makeshift repairs.
I watch a landscape of rolling green hills punctuated by clusters of mud buildings and matoke patches and shambas. In the fields I can see men and women naked to the waist swinging hoes in the heat, silent windows to the past keeping a rhythm of cultivation unbroken since when?
Out of the tangled bush by the roadside I spot something ahead of us on the left side. I focus on it as we pass by and realize it is the ruined form of a tank, barrel pointing south, treads gone, turret rusting; a monument to a decade of war and sadness. It must be too heavy to remove I think. Later I wonder if people have left it as a reminder.
The further north we travel the browner the land becomes. The rolling hills give way to flat, and the palms and bananas are replaced by shorter savanna trees. Every half an hour we pass a largish village that has become a local trading center, complete with small hotel, restaurant, small bars, a petrol station, and a local police detachment. These small towns are characterized by one story brick buildings which have been "plastered" with cement, and painted- usually white or beige. The roofing is usually rusting corrugated iron sheeting. The smaller shops (dhukas) still are wattle and daub (mud and Sticks) with thatched roofs.
As we approach such a village we slow a bit as ahead people on bicycles, small boys herding cows and other lorries loom ahead. But before we pull even with the bustle of the village, I see what the driver has been angling towards. Under a shady tree, resting on carved three legged stools, are a number of policemen. As we pull to a stop in front of the spiked tire strip I hadn't noticed before, the youngest looking policeman, who is also the only one wearing a helmet in the heat, strides down to talk to our driver.
The passengers watch quietly to see what the police will do. Sometimes police will shake down a vehicle, forcing all passengers and baggage out of the vehicle for inspection. This is done ostensible to enforce the passenger load limit, but in reality is merely a game whose only mystery is is how much money will it take before the police let them on their way again. The young lieutenant wearily greets the driver and glances back into the grossly overloaded vehicle.
A see a few of my fellow passengers glance back at me. To see what I think of all this I wonder? The driver produces his license. It is looked at. He's asked to get out of the van, which he does. A kind of groaning sigh goes up from a few of the passengers. The officer and driver walk around the vehicle, the uniformed man pointing at all the vehicle deficits that he will have to write-up-for safety's sake. The policeman gestures that the side door should be opened and people begin to gather belongings and prepairing to exit the vehicle.
As the policeman walks past my window and sees my white face staring back at him he's obviously surprised to see a Mzungu this far into the bush on public transport, he disgustedly gestures to the turn-boy to get in the vehicle and close the door. To the driver he says something I gather to the equivalent of, "let that be a warning to you. We'll meet again soon." As the driver jumps in his seat and starts the engine, the lingala music starts back up, and some relieved laughter bubbles out. A couple people again look at me , and this time I get the joke. My presence kept them all from being shaken down by the cops.
As we pull away I get to thinking that probably the greatest service to commerce we expats could do for the people of this country would be to ride the matatu's endlessly, foiling the police in their extortion attempts.
We stop again a hundred meters further on in the village proper. As soon as we stop food vendors rush to the open windows thrusting muchomo (roast pork in a skewer), roast maize, roasted bananas (delicious), samosas, cold sodas, and sweet biscuits from Kenya with names like "Sukari." I buy some maize and a soda. I must pay extra if I plan on taking the bottle with me when we depart. I slam down the ice cold coca cola. There is a god, I think.