Back to Africa: Uganda

The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood.

Sir Richard Burton 

Greetings from Lubowa, on the outskirts of Kampala. I'm writing from a comfortable seat on the veranda of my cousins' house, with a beautiful view of Lake Victoria. The scene is resplendent with dense foliage including palm trees, banana trees, and flowering trees and shrubs boasting hues of brilliant white, violet, magenta, marigold, powder blue, and saffron. There is a subtle and consistent chorus of melodic birdsongs, punctuated from time to time with the honking call of an Ibis. 

It's been over four years since I left Burkina Faso after 27 months of Peace Corps service. This six-week trip to Uganda is my first return to the continent. I'm here in an entirely different role, as a visitor/tourist, student, and researcher. My six weeks will consist of visiting family--my cousin and cousin-in-law work at the U.S. Embassy--and research in northern Uganda, in collaboration with a U.S.-based NGO and an association of indigenous Ugandan civil society organizations.

After 24 hours of typically tedious but surprisingly seamless travel, I arrived in Entebbe three days ago. The first thing that struck me, in a deeply comforting way, was the hot, dusty smell unique to Africa, with subtle variations.  

I'll spend the first two weeks of my trip in Kampala with family, networking with contacts in Uganda, catching up with a college friend, and partaking in some weekend adventures, including a camping trip to Jinja and the headwaters of the Nile and some sailing on Lake Victoria. This is Africa as I have never experienced it - with the comforts of expat life, a driver to take me into the city for meetings and errands, consistent wireless internet access, and the wonderful hospitality of family. 

Yesterday, I ventured into Kampala for the first time to meet with a representative of an NGO association sponsoring my research permit application (DENIVA - the Ugandan Network of NGOs and CBOs [community-based orgs]). It felt at once vastly different and intimately familiar. Kampala is nothing like the west and north African cities I've experienced in terms of the level of overall development, but the roadside stalls, encompassing everything from restaurants to mechanic shops to purveyors of every good and combination of goods imaginable, are ubiquitous in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the roads we traversed could easily have been in Ouagadougou, Accra, or Dakar. Isaac, the driver, provided a narration of Kampala sites as we traversed the city, passing Uganda's parliament, embassies, the industrial region of the city, and even a lush golf course.

Today, after enjoying a lazy, rainy morning in Lubowa, I'll head into Kampala to procure my research permit, meet with a young journalist, and grab dinner with a college friend. I'm excited to sit down with Rosebell, an up-and-coming journalist and blogger who writes on current events, culture, and politics and has authored and filmed some wonderful pieces in response to Invisible Children's Kony 2012 campaign. I hope that our conversation will lend some useful context, in terms of public opinion and youth activism in Uganda, to my research, which focuses on the capacities of NGOs and IOs to provide rehabilitative and reintegrative services for children formerly affiliated with fighting forces (CAFF) in northern Uganda.

Thanks for reading. 'Til next time.

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

Martin Buber

Kampala

Downtown Kampala

Kampala traffic

Qaddafi Mosque

Kampala from Lubowa