Uganda is a Mystery

Uganda seemed like a bitter place the night I arrived: all uniform and guns and serious faces. But in the morning it was paradise. White light came through windows, and everything was blooming and green. We took a sticky hot bus to Kempala which was a rucus like I never imagined. Traffic was lunacy: packed and frantic with little motorcycles called Bota Botas. The roadsides were lined with slummy little shack-shops selling gadgets, junk, furniature and fruit. People everywhere. Bare feet on red dirt. Burining piles of trash. My eyes were too small, I couldn't decide what to look at. A man peddled a bicycle with a severed cow head in the basket, it had three-foot horns. Another cyclist had a full size refrigorator.

Signs all over the place said "Drink Coca-Cola." So we did, and it was heaven. Nothing tastes better than a cold, glass-bottled Coke under the African sun, unless it's the pineapple. It gows here on the farm where we are staying. African pinneaples are large, and sour-sweet like golden candy. American pinneapple is ruined forever.

I saw rain on lake Victoria, took a small boat out into it actually. We landed on an island called Kachanga, which was fertile and robust with a squallid little fishing village clinging to the shore. The whole place smelled like the city dump on a summer day. All the children ran and tumbled together in a great big pack like puppies. They shouted and waved, and grabbed our hands, and hugged our legs, and riffled through our pockets, and made off with our sunglasses. I fell in love with them right away. I had left my hair down out of ignorance, and they petted and pulled on it ceaslessly. All of them had shaved heads. One little girl liked my necklace, she was the only one who spoke any English, so I gave it to her. In return she gave me a clothes pin and a pink balloon. I'm going to keep them forever.

Uganda is a mystery. How can an island village function without electricity, medicine, running water, or a public latrine? Why would people without shoes own cellphones? What startled me was the overal positity of the country. Most of the people I have met seemed genuinely happy. People living in utter poverty were not self pittying, but enterprising. There is so much trying going on in Uganda, so much industrious energy. The most inspiring aspect of this trip was that in the vast city of Kempala, a city full of dirt floors and tin roofs, trash heaps and contaminated water, I saw not one beggar. Everyone was buying, selling, building, repairing or delivering. This is the spirit that will save Africa, and perhaps even the world.

 

By Coram Parker