From mid September until mid October I took a three week trip to Uganda and Congo. The main purpose of my journey was to visit my boyfriend Othy but I also decided to pair it with consulting on the mapping projects that I helped to launch two years ago with the IRI at UCBC. It also felt like a big deal because I took one month leave from my job to do it! But after communicating over long distance with Othy for so long, the time had come to go there! I was thankful that the process of obtaining a visa for Congo went smoothly. I went on the trip with the knowledge that I might not even get to go there despite getting the visa because of insecurity in the region in recent months. Our back up plan was that if I could not travel to Congo, we would spend the entire time in Uganda.
Upon arriving in Entebbe very late on Sunday night I had my first funny moment when my friend Steve from EMI who had offered to host me forgot to pick me up at the airport! Luckily Othy had just arrived in Kampala and I called him with the phone of a taxi driver! I took a taxi into Kampala, met Othy, and we found a hotel for me for that first night. The first few days in Uganda were spent hanging around the apartment of the friend where Othy was staying, or else going on errands or visiting people in and around the city. It felt good to be reunited with Othy and to spend time together! On Wednesday I took Othy to visit and have lunch at the new EMI office in Kajjansi. It was so great to reconnect with the few people I still know there (Phil in particular!) and also see their wonderful new facilities. I saw Steve and he insisted to pay the cost of my first night at the hotel because he felt so bad about forgetting to pick me up! Phil gave us a tour of the office and Othy and I were both impressed by the construction and feel of the space. I left the office a big bag of M&Ms because I know from my time living in Kampala that chocolate is scarce!
Reunited!
EMI office
After that first night at the hotel I was couch-surfing with a Ugandan family in Ggaba for five nights. I had decided to couch-surf already before leaving on the trip and was pleasantly surprised to find a large number of hosts in Uganda. I chose to stay with a Ugandan guy named Paul who is married and has two little girls. He was fun to surf with because he is down to earth, is an entrepreneur who is full of ideas, and has hosted people from around the world for many years already. I enjoyed talking with him and his wife and interacting with their kids. On my final day in Ggaba I walked the short fifteen minutes down to Lake Victoria to see the market and the view of the lake and also to buy fresh fish fillets. I picked out a tilapia fish and then they filleted it in front of me! We ate the fish with rice that night.
Couch-surfing hosts
Lake Victoria
Similar to my last trip to Congo, there was some good timing because of overlap with the travel plans of some friends and colleagues. It so happened that my friend Jessica was in Kampala to run some errands and so on Thursday Othy and I met up with her at Acacia mall for lunch. She informed us that Mary was also arriving in Entebbe and that they were planning to travel to Congo together on the Sunday and that we could join them. Othy decided that he needed to go to Beni early to help out a friend, and so we agreed that I would join Mary and Jessica. My final night of my first week in Uganda I spent at the EMI intern house in Kajjansi. I hired a driver to bring me down from Kampala because I still had a lot of bags. I had brought very few personal belongings on the trip, but was on a mission to deliver two bags full of gifts to the families of two friends I know from Toronto! At the intern house I got to reconnect with Maggie who is the office grandma and who I knew from my time as an intern. I also gave Brittany, my former EMI mentor, a call, and we went out for dinner with the two current interns. We went to the restaurant at a place called Malakai Eco Lodge. It was typical Ugandan in that it was located in what felt like the middle of nowhere down a bumpy dirt road, but then upon entering you discover a mini paradise. Brittany described it to me as coming straight out of “Alice in Wonderland” and she was totally right! The place had an other worldly, mad hatter feel with gigantic orange chairs, ornate rugs, hedges, island pavilions, and yes…. a giant glowing mushroom.
The next morning I was up at 5am to pull my things together for the next leg of the journey: It was time to head back to Beni! That about sums up the first week of my trip that was spent in Uganda!
Life Section 