The Heart of Darkness
This is going to be a long post- if you don’t have enough time, the quick and dirty story is 5 of us went to the Ssese Islands, and came back.
If you have more time, you can stick around for the long story: Sam, Aliza, Troy, Shereen, and I had decided that we would use this coming weekend to do a nice long trip to the Ssese Islands, and in particular Banda Island, which had a good reputation as a beautiful, out of the way backpacker’s place to stay and relax. Aliza was the point person for this trip, and because cell phone reception on this island is really spotty, the only way to really communicate with the owner of the island is through text messaging, so Aliza spent a good amount of time texting back and forth with Dominic, the Kenyan mzungu (white person) who owns the island.
Before we set off on Friday, we had a few errands to run for Dominic- namely, a lot of grocery shopping. Because the list was somewhat extensive, and also fairly heavy, I decided to take the morning off (we had planned for an afternoon departure) and go do all the shopping. Our trip was planned well in that the entire surveillance team (Hasifa, etc.) weren’t even at the hospital because they had another meeting elsewhere that was going to last for a few days, so my taking the day off (and Shereen taking the day off too) wasn’t too irresponsible on either of our parts. Shereen stayed at home while I went out to Garden City to do all the shopping.
2 kgs of soup bones, 2 kgs of green beans, 2 kgs of zucchini, and a load of other groceries later (and with a soccer ball that I picked up for Shereen because she wanted one) I was loaded up pretty darn full with stuff. The only problem is that in certain areas of town, there is an unspoken agreement of sorts that the cheap private hire taxis don’t go near some of the posher shopping malls- checkered cabs with hyper-inflated fare meters are the only taxis allowed there (analogous to a turf war between rival gangs). These checkered cabs charge almost 3x as much as a normal taxi, and probably 20x as much as a matatu, making them pretty darn expensive. Since matatus don’t run near Garden City, and the checkered cabs were sitting there waiting to suck me dry of cash, I decided to take a boda boda (motorcycle/moped private hire) that would cost about the same as a cheap private hire. I got on, and it was great until we drove over a median to get to the other side of the road, and my nalgene popped out of my backpack, and got promptly run over by a SUV. I always thought Nalgene bottles were nigh indestructible, but the power of a charging SUV flattened the Nalgene bottle with a pretty spectacular exploding sound, and lots of water exploding everywhere. We kept going, and I didn’t bother to pick up the remains (I think the bottle probably didn’t rupture, only the screw cap exploded off- but the bottle was flat as a board, and probably wouldn’t be salvageable.
After packing up, and waiting for everyone to get ready, we headed out to the old taxi park, where we found a matatu heading to Kasenyi, a fishing town next to Entebbe (the city most people fly into, about 1 hr from Kampala). We arrived, and Aliza told us what Dominic had advised us to do.
Dominic was very detailed in his instructions on how to get to the island- he told us that after arriving in Kasenyi, we should look for a little take-away restaurant. In that restaurant, there would be a contact named Mama Grace who would arrange a boat ride for us to Banda Island. We found her without much trouble, and sat down for about an hour to wait for the boat to be ready. In the meantime, I took a walk around the town with Troy and took a few pictures:
Aliza wanted to appropriate this vehicle:
The boats:
This next picture has an awesome story tied to it- apparently this small fishing town desperately needed a bank so that fishermen/women could conveniently store cash (and not have to drive all the way to Entebbe with their paychecks in their pockets). It just so happened that while we were there, a member of parliament had arranged to set up a bank in the town- the only bad news was that the bank was going to be established on the third floor of a building, and to be a real secure bank, they needed a vault of sorts. The picture that follows is about 14 men struggling to pull up a 1 ton mini-vault up a narrow staircase. The neatest part of the whole process was the rhythmic chant that the workers used to time their pulls and resting phases. It went something like this:
Lead caller: “l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-a!!!”
13 pullers: “I-yah!” (identical to the shout that karate people make when they punch or kick)
Lead caller: ““l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-a!!!”
13 pullers: “I-yah!”
Lead caller: ““l-l-l-l-l-l-a!!!”
13 pullers: “I-yah!”
Lead caller: (Something I couldn’t understand, but something probably like “Are we ridiculously awesome?”)
13 pullers: (Something I couldn’t understand again, but probably meant “hell yeah!”)
Then they would pull like crazy.
It was quite impressive.
After Troy and I were done walking around, Aliza and I went around to a different part of the village, and saw a few neat things. Probably the cutest things we saw were these ridiculously dirty little children who took a shine to Aliza and kept asking for sweets.
Aliza has no sweets (hence the extended empty hand), but if we had any, the sheer size of the shoes this kid is wearing would have deserved a few sweets.
The boat was finally ready, and we realized that because the boats were relatively deep bottomed, and they weren’t anchored close to land, we would have to wade out, potentially up to our chests before we reached the boat. Fortunately, this was a commonplace worry amongst foreigners and probably a few locals, and many fishermen were more than eager to carry us on their shoulders out to the boat, in relative dryness. (Apparently if you’re a foreign woman wearing anything provocative like a mini-skirt, you might incite a mini-mob fight over who gets to carry you out- fortunately Aliza and Shereen decided to be modest today).
Picture of me:
Other passengers.
From far to near: Aliza, Sam, Shereen and Troy
The fishermen aren’t kidding when they go fishing.
The boat ride was fun at first- I really like boats, and it reminded me of my deep sea fishing experiences with my dad. However, the fact that these boats were meant to carry dead fish and not live people as their cargo soon made the journey pretty darn uncomfortable. After about 4 hours of night time navigation (the moon shines ridiculously brightly over Lake Victoria, to the point where you wonder if you’re in a baseball stadium for a night game, with a few million watts of fluorescent lighting around you) we made it to Banda Island at about 10:30 at night.
We had been promised a bonfire, as well as food upon arrival, and I was eagerly anticipating both, and we weren’t disappointed. We met Dominic, a large shaggy Caucasian man who was stoned and drunk, as well as 2 of his guests, who were also smoking pot and drunk. Apparently they were drinking “liquid inspiration” (as Dom likes to call it) which is basically banans that Dom grows, has stomped on by local girls, then ferments into banana alcohol, which he then mixes with lots of sugar and coffee and vanilla to mask the really nasty taste Sam says it has. But it does a good job of getting people drunk and keeping them drunk.
Dinner was pretty darn good, as was the fire (albeit briefly, since the logs tend to be wet and freshly cut, and the most impressive part of the bonfire is when they throw on whole dried palm fronds as kindling- the palm fronds alone can create a pillar of flame around 8-10 feet tall at times). Aliza and Shereen decided to share the “romantic” cottage for 2 on the beach, and Sam took the single right next to them. Troy and I went further back into the forest to stay in a 2 story dormitory style house, which was pretty comfortable if you didn’t pay attention to how filthy the bedding was.
Troy and me:
The beach:
Sam’s cottage:
By morning, we could actually appreciate what the island looked like, and also were able to take stock of what we could do. Unfortunately for us, it turns out that there was a lot less to do than we had anticipated. The website had advertised kayaking and hiking and lots of other activities, but like most of the buildings, the equipment was pretty worn down and decrepit. I was thinking about fishing, but the rods that they had were all pretty broken, and they only had one kayak, so a group kayaking trip was out. They did have a little dinghy, but even that leaked and only 4 people could fit in it. We did decide that we should at least explore and make the best of the situation- we started hiking around the side of the island along a little bushwhacked trail. It was all nice and pleasant, until the fire ants showed up.
We were walking along the trail when I noticed all of a sudden a really large swathe of large red ants. We didn’t think it was a big deal, so we just walked over them.
Fortunately for me, I was wearing hiking boots and shorts. The rest of my part was not quite so fortunate. Sam, Aliza, and Shereen were wearing sandals, while Troy wore sneakers and long pants. I was walking merrily along, not worrying about anything, when suddenly I heard shout/screams from behind me, and a lot of swearing as the fire ants decided to take chunks of flesh out of everyone’s legs. We all started running, and there was plenty of pain involved, at least for most everyone else. I got away with one bite, which was akin to a staple gun being shot into my ankle. The rest of the party was not so fortunate. Sandaled people got completely attacked, and Troy, with his long pants, had ants hidden in his pants and climbing upwards. Aliza and Shereen somehow got ants under their bikinis, which they were wearing under their clothes. The ants were so ferocious, they even took chunks out of non-fleshy materials, like foam flip flops:
Staple gun/vampiric bite action:
We hid on top of a stone platform, and removed all the fire ants we could find. Aliza, Sam, and Shereen decided that going back through that path was more pain than they cared to bear, so they braved the schistosomiasis and walked through the water back to the base camp, while Troy and I decided on a sprint through the forest. We made it back without any bites, but quite a few close calls (ants trying to burrow into socks or shoes to cause extended pain).
Past the red ants, on a rocky area:
We decided to relax a bit after that harrowing experience, and we sat by the beach and relaxed, read, and in my case, found an old acoustic guitar and tried to remember songs I used to play. A flute would have been nice if they had one, but I wasn’t quite so lucky.
I decided to take the kayak out for a little tour around part of the island, but without the waterproof skirt that keeps the water out in event of overturning, I decided that I wouldn’t get too full of myself (especially since the island was reported to have a resident hippo named Henry, who could probably kill me if he wanted to, in or out of water). After I got back, Aliza and I decided to take out the 4 person dinghy (that leaked and needed occasional serious bailing action) and paddle around the island. The sun came out miraculously, and we both tanned a good bit while paddling around. Aliza got all paranoid about Henry, and I had a good time pointing out ominous looking stones in the water that looked vaguely like hippos. We got back without incident, or sighting of any hippos.
A few of us decided to nap/read the afternoon away, and I decided to tempt fate again, and take a different trail, only one that was supposed to go into the center of the island, to the peak, where a view could be had. I found all sorts of gardens and cultivation going on- Dominic, besides being a crazy, stoned, drunkard, is also a pretty funny guy with a serious gardening streak. He was growing 2 species of pineapples, tomatoes, mangoes, corn, avocadoes (which are ridiculously enormous in this part of the world, looking more like a football than an avocado), lemongrass, and several other species. Besides being a gardener, he also has an interest in constructing buildings. Apparently that’s part of the reason why he bought the island- so he could just build whatever he wanted all over the island.
The trip up the hill had all the suspense of a horror movie (with fire ants being the serial killer) but fortunately I didn’t run into any while I was up there.
A few more pictures:
After I got back, I went for another walk with Dom and his dogs, just to check out the rest of his plantations. When we got back, I talked with the rest of the group, and they were all less than enthused about the island, and about staying until Monday like we had initially planned. We decided that Banda Island was pretty much a bust, and that we would head out on Sunday if possible. There was some debate as to whether or not we should go to the main island (Buggala) and spend the night there (Aliza) or if we should go back to Kampala (Sam and Shereen). Troy and I were swing voters, and I decided that I would go to the main island with Aliza if she was going to be the only one who wanted to go, but Troy finally decided that he wanted to see the main island as well (and even though they both had proposals and work due Monday night US time, they would stay up together on Monday night Uganda time and finish their work at the hospital). That night more guests came, and we had a group of 15, which was pretty huge considering that the island had apparently lost a lot of popularity since the last printing of my guide book and very few people if any showed up at the island anymore.
While sitting around the campfire, we started talking about Captain Planet and who was what Planeteer, hypothetical death matches between elephants and great white sharks, or crocodiles and great white sharks, etc. etc. Some part of the way through the night, I was struck with the realization that this entire setting reminded me strongly of a book I had to read back in high school, but didn’t enjoy much at all: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Similarities: crazy white man in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by natives, decrepit buildings, and a sense of colonialism…
When I mentioned it, we all agreed that this most definitely was a nigh perfect embodiment of the Heart of Darkness, and started referring to Dom as “Kurtz” (the crazy white guy in the book). The next day, we set about documenting the decrepit state of the island and it’s embodiment of the Heart of Darkness in photographic form (we pretty much took pictures of Dom’s self-styled “castle,” a partially completed 3 story building):
Kurtz at the top of the castle (though I think it's really Sam):
Sepia and black and white photos seem to add to the general feel.
One probably half-real half-joke conversation that I overheard Dom having was that he had apparently bought 50 kgs of "super glue" so he could put a building together, which he said wasn't the best thing architecturally, but would work. Serious, or not? I don’t know if I want to know.
When we woke up the next morning, we split into 2 groups- one group that was heading to Kalangala (a town on the main island with a backpacker resort on a nice beach) and a group that was headed back to Kampala. Aliza and Troy formed the main island group, while Sam and Shereen wanted to head back. I didn’t decide until the last moment, when I figured that the trip back to Kampala was going to be way more dicey than the trip to the main island. The trip to the main island had a guaranteed transport there (the owner of the backpacker resort was on Banda Island with us, as of the night before) and there was a on-time ferry that left the main island every morning at 8 am to get to Entebbe, from which there are regular matatus that can take you back to Kampala. However, the group that was going back to Kampala on Sunday had to try to flag down a fishing boat that might or might not show up, and that might be full and not carry any more passengers to Kasenyi (the fishing town we had left from in the first place). In addition to this, the fishing boat might arrive late at night, making transport from this small fishing village back to Kampala in time for the World Cup Finals seem pretty chancey.
I decided to go with the Kampala group, partly because I was worried about if they would make it, partly because I wasn’t worried about Troy and Aliza, and partly because I wanted to get back in contact with people back in the States who might be worried about me.
Before we split up, we had a few hours to kill, so we ran around the island taking pictures. Aliza had the misfortune to break her flip flop while running away from fire ants, and had to then run partially barefoot through the rest... she was pretty pissed, and revenge was in store:
Fire ant on fire:
Sam, Shereen, Simon (another guest who had to be in Entebbe that night), and I got dropped off on the far side of Banda island in a fishing village, where it was possible that we might see a passing fishing boat bound for Kasenyi that we could flag down.
While waiting for this boat to pass by, we played with some extremely cute and crazy kids. They absolutely loved getting attention from foreigners and really went ape-nuts when we took their picture. They were especially good at mimicking whatever we did, and really enjoyed playing with us. Consequently, we did a few fun things.
I taught them a little wushu: my instructors would be proud.
I also skipped stones for them, which they got a huge kick out of- soon I had stones of all shapes and sizes being pressed into my hands, just so they could watch me skip them across the lake. For someone like me, who loves skipping stones, it’s a great day when you have an army of kids looking for skipping stones for you, and you can just sit back and throw all day long. However, these kids couldn’t quite differentiate between a nice skipping stone and a boulder. Or a pebble. And so as a result, I have a sore arm from trying to skip things that God never intended to be skipped. I used to say that you could even skip a toaster if you threw it hard enough, but these kids found things that would make a toaster seem like a beautifully round and smooth skipping stone.
After standing on the beach for 2 hrs, and almost losing hope that a fishing boat would come by, one finally came. It was packed with dried and very smelly fish, and a very uncomfortable, wet, and smelly 3 hour ride, we got back to Kasenyi, hopped on a matatu that happened to be filling up for Kampala, and got back just at 9 pm, in time for the World Cup Finals.
However, we all smelled like really really rank fish, and my backpack needs a good scrubbing, or a dip in some acid, or perfume. Or acid perfume.
All in all, a pretty fun trip, full of new experiences, and lots of new stories to tell.
Oh, and I have a huge craving for baked goods: cookies, cakes, ice cream (yeah yeah, not baked, but I would want some anyways). It doesn't help when people like Jenn Chen send me pictures like this:
I'm hungry.
If you have more time, you can stick around for the long story: Sam, Aliza, Troy, Shereen, and I had decided that we would use this coming weekend to do a nice long trip to the Ssese Islands, and in particular Banda Island, which had a good reputation as a beautiful, out of the way backpacker’s place to stay and relax. Aliza was the point person for this trip, and because cell phone reception on this island is really spotty, the only way to really communicate with the owner of the island is through text messaging, so Aliza spent a good amount of time texting back and forth with Dominic, the Kenyan mzungu (white person) who owns the island.
Before we set off on Friday, we had a few errands to run for Dominic- namely, a lot of grocery shopping. Because the list was somewhat extensive, and also fairly heavy, I decided to take the morning off (we had planned for an afternoon departure) and go do all the shopping. Our trip was planned well in that the entire surveillance team (Hasifa, etc.) weren’t even at the hospital because they had another meeting elsewhere that was going to last for a few days, so my taking the day off (and Shereen taking the day off too) wasn’t too irresponsible on either of our parts. Shereen stayed at home while I went out to Garden City to do all the shopping.
2 kgs of soup bones, 2 kgs of green beans, 2 kgs of zucchini, and a load of other groceries later (and with a soccer ball that I picked up for Shereen because she wanted one) I was loaded up pretty darn full with stuff. The only problem is that in certain areas of town, there is an unspoken agreement of sorts that the cheap private hire taxis don’t go near some of the posher shopping malls- checkered cabs with hyper-inflated fare meters are the only taxis allowed there (analogous to a turf war between rival gangs). These checkered cabs charge almost 3x as much as a normal taxi, and probably 20x as much as a matatu, making them pretty darn expensive. Since matatus don’t run near Garden City, and the checkered cabs were sitting there waiting to suck me dry of cash, I decided to take a boda boda (motorcycle/moped private hire) that would cost about the same as a cheap private hire. I got on, and it was great until we drove over a median to get to the other side of the road, and my nalgene popped out of my backpack, and got promptly run over by a SUV. I always thought Nalgene bottles were nigh indestructible, but the power of a charging SUV flattened the Nalgene bottle with a pretty spectacular exploding sound, and lots of water exploding everywhere. We kept going, and I didn’t bother to pick up the remains (I think the bottle probably didn’t rupture, only the screw cap exploded off- but the bottle was flat as a board, and probably wouldn’t be salvageable.
After packing up, and waiting for everyone to get ready, we headed out to the old taxi park, where we found a matatu heading to Kasenyi, a fishing town next to Entebbe (the city most people fly into, about 1 hr from Kampala). We arrived, and Aliza told us what Dominic had advised us to do.
Dominic was very detailed in his instructions on how to get to the island- he told us that after arriving in Kasenyi, we should look for a little take-away restaurant. In that restaurant, there would be a contact named Mama Grace who would arrange a boat ride for us to Banda Island. We found her without much trouble, and sat down for about an hour to wait for the boat to be ready. In the meantime, I took a walk around the town with Troy and took a few pictures:
Aliza wanted to appropriate this vehicle:
The boats:
This next picture has an awesome story tied to it- apparently this small fishing town desperately needed a bank so that fishermen/women could conveniently store cash (and not have to drive all the way to Entebbe with their paychecks in their pockets). It just so happened that while we were there, a member of parliament had arranged to set up a bank in the town- the only bad news was that the bank was going to be established on the third floor of a building, and to be a real secure bank, they needed a vault of sorts. The picture that follows is about 14 men struggling to pull up a 1 ton mini-vault up a narrow staircase. The neatest part of the whole process was the rhythmic chant that the workers used to time their pulls and resting phases. It went something like this:
Lead caller: “l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-a!!!”
13 pullers: “I-yah!” (identical to the shout that karate people make when they punch or kick)
Lead caller: ““l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-a!!!”
13 pullers: “I-yah!”
Lead caller: ““l-l-l-l-l-l-a!!!”
13 pullers: “I-yah!”
Lead caller: (Something I couldn’t understand, but something probably like “Are we ridiculously awesome?”)
13 pullers: (Something I couldn’t understand again, but probably meant “hell yeah!”)
Then they would pull like crazy.
It was quite impressive.
After Troy and I were done walking around, Aliza and I went around to a different part of the village, and saw a few neat things. Probably the cutest things we saw were these ridiculously dirty little children who took a shine to Aliza and kept asking for sweets.
Aliza has no sweets (hence the extended empty hand), but if we had any, the sheer size of the shoes this kid is wearing would have deserved a few sweets.
The boat was finally ready, and we realized that because the boats were relatively deep bottomed, and they weren’t anchored close to land, we would have to wade out, potentially up to our chests before we reached the boat. Fortunately, this was a commonplace worry amongst foreigners and probably a few locals, and many fishermen were more than eager to carry us on their shoulders out to the boat, in relative dryness. (Apparently if you’re a foreign woman wearing anything provocative like a mini-skirt, you might incite a mini-mob fight over who gets to carry you out- fortunately Aliza and Shereen decided to be modest today).
Picture of me:
Other passengers.
From far to near: Aliza, Sam, Shereen and Troy
The fishermen aren’t kidding when they go fishing.
The boat ride was fun at first- I really like boats, and it reminded me of my deep sea fishing experiences with my dad. However, the fact that these boats were meant to carry dead fish and not live people as their cargo soon made the journey pretty darn uncomfortable. After about 4 hours of night time navigation (the moon shines ridiculously brightly over Lake Victoria, to the point where you wonder if you’re in a baseball stadium for a night game, with a few million watts of fluorescent lighting around you) we made it to Banda Island at about 10:30 at night.
We had been promised a bonfire, as well as food upon arrival, and I was eagerly anticipating both, and we weren’t disappointed. We met Dominic, a large shaggy Caucasian man who was stoned and drunk, as well as 2 of his guests, who were also smoking pot and drunk. Apparently they were drinking “liquid inspiration” (as Dom likes to call it) which is basically banans that Dom grows, has stomped on by local girls, then ferments into banana alcohol, which he then mixes with lots of sugar and coffee and vanilla to mask the really nasty taste Sam says it has. But it does a good job of getting people drunk and keeping them drunk.
Dinner was pretty darn good, as was the fire (albeit briefly, since the logs tend to be wet and freshly cut, and the most impressive part of the bonfire is when they throw on whole dried palm fronds as kindling- the palm fronds alone can create a pillar of flame around 8-10 feet tall at times). Aliza and Shereen decided to share the “romantic” cottage for 2 on the beach, and Sam took the single right next to them. Troy and I went further back into the forest to stay in a 2 story dormitory style house, which was pretty comfortable if you didn’t pay attention to how filthy the bedding was.
Troy and me:
The beach:
Sam’s cottage:
By morning, we could actually appreciate what the island looked like, and also were able to take stock of what we could do. Unfortunately for us, it turns out that there was a lot less to do than we had anticipated. The website had advertised kayaking and hiking and lots of other activities, but like most of the buildings, the equipment was pretty worn down and decrepit. I was thinking about fishing, but the rods that they had were all pretty broken, and they only had one kayak, so a group kayaking trip was out. They did have a little dinghy, but even that leaked and only 4 people could fit in it. We did decide that we should at least explore and make the best of the situation- we started hiking around the side of the island along a little bushwhacked trail. It was all nice and pleasant, until the fire ants showed up.
We were walking along the trail when I noticed all of a sudden a really large swathe of large red ants. We didn’t think it was a big deal, so we just walked over them.
Fortunately for me, I was wearing hiking boots and shorts. The rest of my part was not quite so fortunate. Sam, Aliza, and Shereen were wearing sandals, while Troy wore sneakers and long pants. I was walking merrily along, not worrying about anything, when suddenly I heard shout/screams from behind me, and a lot of swearing as the fire ants decided to take chunks of flesh out of everyone’s legs. We all started running, and there was plenty of pain involved, at least for most everyone else. I got away with one bite, which was akin to a staple gun being shot into my ankle. The rest of the party was not so fortunate. Sandaled people got completely attacked, and Troy, with his long pants, had ants hidden in his pants and climbing upwards. Aliza and Shereen somehow got ants under their bikinis, which they were wearing under their clothes. The ants were so ferocious, they even took chunks out of non-fleshy materials, like foam flip flops:
Staple gun/vampiric bite action:
We hid on top of a stone platform, and removed all the fire ants we could find. Aliza, Sam, and Shereen decided that going back through that path was more pain than they cared to bear, so they braved the schistosomiasis and walked through the water back to the base camp, while Troy and I decided on a sprint through the forest. We made it back without any bites, but quite a few close calls (ants trying to burrow into socks or shoes to cause extended pain).
Past the red ants, on a rocky area:
We decided to relax a bit after that harrowing experience, and we sat by the beach and relaxed, read, and in my case, found an old acoustic guitar and tried to remember songs I used to play. A flute would have been nice if they had one, but I wasn’t quite so lucky.
I decided to take the kayak out for a little tour around part of the island, but without the waterproof skirt that keeps the water out in event of overturning, I decided that I wouldn’t get too full of myself (especially since the island was reported to have a resident hippo named Henry, who could probably kill me if he wanted to, in or out of water). After I got back, Aliza and I decided to take out the 4 person dinghy (that leaked and needed occasional serious bailing action) and paddle around the island. The sun came out miraculously, and we both tanned a good bit while paddling around. Aliza got all paranoid about Henry, and I had a good time pointing out ominous looking stones in the water that looked vaguely like hippos. We got back without incident, or sighting of any hippos.
A few of us decided to nap/read the afternoon away, and I decided to tempt fate again, and take a different trail, only one that was supposed to go into the center of the island, to the peak, where a view could be had. I found all sorts of gardens and cultivation going on- Dominic, besides being a crazy, stoned, drunkard, is also a pretty funny guy with a serious gardening streak. He was growing 2 species of pineapples, tomatoes, mangoes, corn, avocadoes (which are ridiculously enormous in this part of the world, looking more like a football than an avocado), lemongrass, and several other species. Besides being a gardener, he also has an interest in constructing buildings. Apparently that’s part of the reason why he bought the island- so he could just build whatever he wanted all over the island.
The trip up the hill had all the suspense of a horror movie (with fire ants being the serial killer) but fortunately I didn’t run into any while I was up there.
A few more pictures:
After I got back, I went for another walk with Dom and his dogs, just to check out the rest of his plantations. When we got back, I talked with the rest of the group, and they were all less than enthused about the island, and about staying until Monday like we had initially planned. We decided that Banda Island was pretty much a bust, and that we would head out on Sunday if possible. There was some debate as to whether or not we should go to the main island (Buggala) and spend the night there (Aliza) or if we should go back to Kampala (Sam and Shereen). Troy and I were swing voters, and I decided that I would go to the main island with Aliza if she was going to be the only one who wanted to go, but Troy finally decided that he wanted to see the main island as well (and even though they both had proposals and work due Monday night US time, they would stay up together on Monday night Uganda time and finish their work at the hospital). That night more guests came, and we had a group of 15, which was pretty huge considering that the island had apparently lost a lot of popularity since the last printing of my guide book and very few people if any showed up at the island anymore.
While sitting around the campfire, we started talking about Captain Planet and who was what Planeteer, hypothetical death matches between elephants and great white sharks, or crocodiles and great white sharks, etc. etc. Some part of the way through the night, I was struck with the realization that this entire setting reminded me strongly of a book I had to read back in high school, but didn’t enjoy much at all: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Similarities: crazy white man in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by natives, decrepit buildings, and a sense of colonialism…
When I mentioned it, we all agreed that this most definitely was a nigh perfect embodiment of the Heart of Darkness, and started referring to Dom as “Kurtz” (the crazy white guy in the book). The next day, we set about documenting the decrepit state of the island and it’s embodiment of the Heart of Darkness in photographic form (we pretty much took pictures of Dom’s self-styled “castle,” a partially completed 3 story building):
Kurtz at the top of the castle (though I think it's really Sam):
Sepia and black and white photos seem to add to the general feel.
One probably half-real half-joke conversation that I overheard Dom having was that he had apparently bought 50 kgs of "super glue" so he could put a building together, which he said wasn't the best thing architecturally, but would work. Serious, or not? I don’t know if I want to know.
When we woke up the next morning, we split into 2 groups- one group that was heading to Kalangala (a town on the main island with a backpacker resort on a nice beach) and a group that was headed back to Kampala. Aliza and Troy formed the main island group, while Sam and Shereen wanted to head back. I didn’t decide until the last moment, when I figured that the trip back to Kampala was going to be way more dicey than the trip to the main island. The trip to the main island had a guaranteed transport there (the owner of the backpacker resort was on Banda Island with us, as of the night before) and there was a on-time ferry that left the main island every morning at 8 am to get to Entebbe, from which there are regular matatus that can take you back to Kampala. However, the group that was going back to Kampala on Sunday had to try to flag down a fishing boat that might or might not show up, and that might be full and not carry any more passengers to Kasenyi (the fishing town we had left from in the first place). In addition to this, the fishing boat might arrive late at night, making transport from this small fishing village back to Kampala in time for the World Cup Finals seem pretty chancey.
I decided to go with the Kampala group, partly because I was worried about if they would make it, partly because I wasn’t worried about Troy and Aliza, and partly because I wanted to get back in contact with people back in the States who might be worried about me.
Before we split up, we had a few hours to kill, so we ran around the island taking pictures. Aliza had the misfortune to break her flip flop while running away from fire ants, and had to then run partially barefoot through the rest... she was pretty pissed, and revenge was in store:
Fire ant on fire:
Sam, Shereen, Simon (another guest who had to be in Entebbe that night), and I got dropped off on the far side of Banda island in a fishing village, where it was possible that we might see a passing fishing boat bound for Kasenyi that we could flag down.
While waiting for this boat to pass by, we played with some extremely cute and crazy kids. They absolutely loved getting attention from foreigners and really went ape-nuts when we took their picture. They were especially good at mimicking whatever we did, and really enjoyed playing with us. Consequently, we did a few fun things.
I taught them a little wushu: my instructors would be proud.
I also skipped stones for them, which they got a huge kick out of- soon I had stones of all shapes and sizes being pressed into my hands, just so they could watch me skip them across the lake. For someone like me, who loves skipping stones, it’s a great day when you have an army of kids looking for skipping stones for you, and you can just sit back and throw all day long. However, these kids couldn’t quite differentiate between a nice skipping stone and a boulder. Or a pebble. And so as a result, I have a sore arm from trying to skip things that God never intended to be skipped. I used to say that you could even skip a toaster if you threw it hard enough, but these kids found things that would make a toaster seem like a beautifully round and smooth skipping stone.
After standing on the beach for 2 hrs, and almost losing hope that a fishing boat would come by, one finally came. It was packed with dried and very smelly fish, and a very uncomfortable, wet, and smelly 3 hour ride, we got back to Kasenyi, hopped on a matatu that happened to be filling up for Kampala, and got back just at 9 pm, in time for the World Cup Finals.
However, we all smelled like really really rank fish, and my backpack needs a good scrubbing, or a dip in some acid, or perfume. Or acid perfume.
All in all, a pretty fun trip, full of new experiences, and lots of new stories to tell.
Oh, and I have a huge craving for baked goods: cookies, cakes, ice cream (yeah yeah, not baked, but I would want some anyways). It doesn't help when people like Jenn Chen send me pictures like this:
I'm hungry.
posted by Vince at 1:55 AM
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