Motorcycle Rides, Joseph Kony, New Friends, and Mountain Camping: Howdy from Kampala!
Well I've got to hand it to Marc — he's really kept the blog going lately as I've stressed over trying to deal with figuring out the rest of my summer, post-July 1st: London School of Economics, Chicago Booth School of Business, etc...but more on that on another blog at another time!
For now, I feel I owe our readers a quick update on all we've been up to lately. The last time you heard from me, we had just arrived to Gulu...so let me see if I can fill in some gaps!
In Gulu we had an amazing experience. We profiled two *amazing* groups for our work: Krochet Kids International and 31 Bits. We were so excited to see each group's unique spin on social enterprise and, from a personal point of view, I was so enriched by seeing people working in jobs and for companies that they clearly loved, and that clearly made a difference. I hope I can achieve this when I enter the professional world here pretty soon!
Gulu itself was a great town. One of the coolest people we've met on this trip, Ben Antonius from Krochet Kids, showed us all around and introduced us to a fantastic restaurant owned by a Ugandan-born Italian with, believe it or not, amazing apple bacon pizza. (Not applewood-smoked bacon...but apples, plus bacon! It was delicious.)
Our few days in Gulu were capped off with a great experience camping, pictures from which can be seen in Marc's earlier post. We rode a motorcycle about 2.5 hours out of town to a fort with an interesting history (http://www.monitor.co.ug/artsculture/Travel/-/691238/856722/-/n5ut7z/-/index.html); unfortunately, the sham guides we paid to show us around knew nothing of this history (despite their official status with the Ugandan Tourism Authority), so we soon bounced and headed back to Gulu. The trip was so worth the night climb to the top of the rocks, and then the night's sleep in a tent on that same small rock ledge, and then the amazing sunrise to which we woke up the next morning, though. What an incredible experience.
A side note: the very rocks we camped in, just a few short years ago, were used as a hideout post and observation point by the infamous Joseph Kony, who took hundreds of children from the immediately surrounding area as child soldiers. The young man who took us out camping on his motorcycle, in fact, had lost both parents to Joseph Kony and his band of insurgents and had had to flee the area as an 11-year old to avoid being captured as a child soldier. This kid is still a teenager — several years younger than me — but to think of what he's been through, and how sadly representative of the entire region his experience is — it's just so sad. It was a harsh reality check...
Moving on from Gulu, we rode a crazy bus (filled with people *and* livestock) about 6-7 hours south to Kampala. We hugely enjoyed this time in this amazing world city, which is distinctly African but still has enough Westerners and Western influence to feel very different from the places we've been spending our time. Marc and I just spent the day touring around the city and trying to find a replacement digital audio recorder, since ours broke in the ride down from Gulu. We never found one, which means a pretty big blow to our documentary work, but we are making do with the other equipment we have and trying to model that great African saying, TIA ["This is Africa"], which is really more a lifestyle than anything else. Like "Hakuna Matata." We met up in the evening with Ben Antonius who had come down on business, and enjoyed *amazing* cocktails at the Camel Club (www.camelclubuganda.com) and an awesome dinner at Yujo Sushi Bar (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Y%C5%ABj%C5%8D-Japanese-Restaurant/155425897837279). Both were definitely Western hangouts popular with the expat crowd, and it was the most money I've spent on one evening yet, but it was still much cheaper than a comparative experience would have cost back in the States and it made for an incredibly enjoyable evening.
The next morning saw Marc and me off to Jinja, where we discovered an amazing hostel right on the side of a cliff over the Nile, with a bar almost literally suspended over the side of the cliff. We got some good work done on their wifi and watched a movie that night on Marc's computer in our room ("The Italian Job"), and then did our amazing whitewater experience the next morning. It was so much fun; I was so glad my first whitewater experience could be on the Nile. Check out the pictures, and expect GoPro video footage soon!
After spending that night back at the sweet cliffside hostel in a true, giant canvas Safari tent — and enjoying hanging out at the bar with Paul, a journalist for the BBC who went rafting with us, and with a bunch of students from Ohio State — we woke up the next day and headed back to Kampala, where we've now been for several days.
I'll end this post now, since I've brought you all up to speed with where we are now, but I will try to post again as soon as I can once we move on to Jinja Tuesday and Nairobi Wednesday. I've been absolutely loving Kampala and all the awesome places we've been and people we've met, so look for a great update on this leg of our trip soon!
