Zanzibar

A hot heavy wind greets me as I walk out of the plane in Zanzibar. The airport is tiny: three money exchangers and a locked customer care office are the only signs of human presence. There is no baggage claim, an employee brings the suitcases to the middle of the airport and starts an improvised auction.

Outside a few cab drivers fight for a ride to Stone Town.

- Jamba. Karibu. My friend, it’s 20 to Stone Town.
- 20 what? Dollars? Shillings?
- If it is too expensive you just tell me. This is not a fight, just a negotiation.

I take a ride to Stone Town for TSh15K (US$12) and the driver tries to sell me a ride for the next day. ‘For 50 I take you to Pawani.’ You never know if they are talking in dollars or shillings but that is the purpose. If you do not ask they will make a 30% profit.

- My friend, $40.
- We agreed TSh40,000. If it is $40 you just drop me here.
- Hakuna Matata, you pay 40K but you call me when you go back to airport
- Hakuna Matata

Stone Town, the heart of Zanzibar Town, is the archetype of an African city. The colonizers built and the locals watched passively to the gradual degradation of the buildings. The architecture is Arabic, 100 years ago I could probably feel I could be anywhere in northern Africa or Southern Europe, it recalled me the small villages of Alentejo in my homeland. Today, Stone Town looks like an abandoned city: filthy, smelly, and dark despite the white walls. There is litter in every corner, decomposing under 100 degrees temperature.

Someday I would like to understand why Africa is like this. Every country I have been into is a bunch of patches built by colonizers that no one ever cared to maintain: the Portuguese built Cahora Bassa in Mozambique, the British built Makerere University in Uganda, the Chinese built railway between Dar es Salaam and Kapiri Mposhi. When you talk to Indians in Eastern Africa they say Africans are lazy, there is nothing to do about it; the ones who are not lazy flee to Europe or America. I resist to believe that argument. Everyone who ever tried to build something in Africa did not care about the Africans. Colonialism, Maoism, or the most recent wave, philanthropy, are good examples of this.

Going to Zanzibar

I am saying goodbye to Uganda. In a few hours I will be taking a cab to the airport to catch a flight to Zanzibar. Unfortunately, I could not find a way to go trekking in Mount Elgon. I will save that for the next visit.

The next week will be spent on the beach, diving turquoise waters, and relaxing. Well, and working out to lose the kilos I gained in Mbarara. No more matoke.

If the Internet gods help, I will post here my final thoughts about Uganda and maybe some pictures from Zanzibar.

Kampala

The Lonely Planet says about Kampala ‘like Rome, Kampala is built on seven hills, although that is where the comparisons begin and end.’ It seems to me obvious that the author of this has never been in Rome, otherwise he would find many other similarities.

Like Rome, traffic in Kampala is chaotic, one-way streets are a suggestion because if the street is wide enough for two then it’s a two-way street, people honk to release traffic stress, the air is heavy and polluted, and there are lots of pizzerias. I can’t find more similarities but I’ve only been in Kampala for a day and a half.

Chaos is probably the word that better defines Kampala, the capital of Uganda. With 1.2 million registered inhabitants, it’s likely that the true population is twice as much. The city and the roads to access the city were made for 400K people, which explains very well why you can spend 2h in traffic to cross 6-7 blocks. Walking is much faster but much riskier as well.
When I say risk I’m not talking about violence or mugging, just crazy traffic. The roads have a hierarchy, and the pedestrian is very low on that pyramid, which means that you are invisible to any hierarchical superior.

Nonetheless, Kampala is somehow charming. Maybe the seven hills give it a touch of romanticism that I recognize in many other hilly cities that I know: Rome, Lisbon, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro. Maybe chaos is after all a fate of any capital and people eventually find their sweet spot in the middle the anarchy. Or maybe is just because it’s different, it’s an African capital, the safest capital I’ve been in Africa.

I like Kampala, it’s a city with personality. I think I could live here for a while.

Plans of a teenager

Elliot, the porter we hired at Buhoma to help us cross the impenetrable forest, has been quiet all day. He does not want any food or water. ‘Sure?’ He is sure.

We are seated in the forest waiting for something to happen; maybe a gorilla will show up, maybe a blue monkey, maybe nothing. I ask Elliot one more time, ‘are you sure you do not want water?’ He is fine.

- What do you do in life? I ask.
- I am porter.
- Do you go to school?
- I’m in high school. I want to go to the university in Kampala next year.
- What do you want to study?
- I want to be a veterinary and work here in the park. If veterinary is not possible, I want to study chemical engineering. That is important here in Buhoma to help in healthcare initiatives.

That sounds like a plan. Elliot, the porter, is 16, but he already has plans for life. Later we find another boy in the street who tries to sell us some carved wood gorillas. We decline but he explains his life,

- I am 14, my uncle taught me carving wood, my mother died from AIDS and my family is very poor.

As sad as it might sound, it sounds like a memorized selling pitch. But the boy does not give up,

- This is good wood.

I am definitely not interested in a wooden gorilla,

- What do you do besides being here at the store?
- I go to school, next year I will go to high school.
- That is impressive, how old are you? What do you want to do?
- I am 14. I want to be a lawyer because there are not a lot of lawyers in Uganda. And as the government pushes for democracy, more lawyers will be needed.
- That sounds very smart!
- But I do not want to be any lawyer. I want to be a criminal lawyer, because that is what people will want in a few years.

I am impressed. Here it is a 14-year-old boy explaining me why he wants to be a lawyer and not any kind of lawyer. I just replied, ‘I wish I had such a clear idea of what I want to do of my life.’

I had a very positive surprise with the level of education in Uganda and the importance people and newspapers give to education. What happened is that, while most African countries invested foreign aid money in college education, which is usually a privilege of wealthy people, Uganda invested in primary and secondary education. That allowed poor people to access education and, as a result, to reach national colleges. The rest, the maturity of these teenagers, is probably a result of the tough childhood and sad stories as the one I heard in Buhoma.

The inauguration viewed by an European

For the first time in my life, as probably many other people, I watched the US presidential inauguration. Although I am in Uganda, I watched the inauguration among Americans. But in Uganda this day is huge, there are Obama pictures everywhere. In Buhoma, near the gorillas, you could only find gorilla shirts and obama shirts. Crazy!

Lots of people screaming, is this the Champions League Final? No? What football match is this?

Oh! Presidential inauguration, what exactly is that? Why does the president need to swear? Do you think he spent two years campaigning to drop in the last minute?

A woman comes and starts talking about being patriotic. Touching. Pause, some sort of pastor comes to speech. WTF? A pastor! Why the hell a pastor has the right to speak in front of a few million people? Why is he talking about god? Where is the State Church separation? This is horrible!

Biden comes to swear. The speech is ridiculous. What is that book the other is holding? The Constitution? No, the Bible! Why is the bible there? Isn’t he swearing to obey the constitution? What if the guy was not catholic?

It’s noon in the US and everyone starts cheering. Wait, why is that? Well, the swearing thing is just a joke. The guy is president anyway after noon. I knew it! This ceremony is ridiculous.

Road to Buhoma

I have the impression that I went to the end of the world and came back. It is a part of the world that you do not see in magazines or television. Nonetheless, people live here and they are happy. Yes, people are happy in this part of the world. They do not care about cable television, internet and other luxuries that we consider basic. They have maize fields, cows and goats, and a very decent education system.

Buhoma

I understood here why people are so reluctant to pose for a picture. Until now I just respected their will and I would only take a picture if they allowed me to. What happens is that any picture taken by a white guy might end up making a cover of a magazine with headlines such as ‘poor Africa’ as if they didn’t have the right to be happy the way they want.

The road to Bwindi is full of tiny villages with very basic conditions but still with plenty of food, animals and people smiling. Kids build their own toys, teenagers build their own bikes with wood and wire. In Buhoma, the last stop before you enter the impenetrable forest, the only bar in town is showing a ManU match. Football is huge here and the premiership is passionately followed. The atmosphere at this bar is as lively as in any pub in London and people squeeze to cheer for their favorite.

In order to get to Buhoma, on the border with Rwanda and Congo, we had to drive for 4 hours through bumpy roads. Noah, our driver, explained the route, ‘we take the road to Kabale, then head west, and then into Bwindi. The last part is a little bumpy.’ I’m guessing that bumpy is very relative since the very first miles of road are a sequence of potholes. But as soon as we leave Mbarara the landscape becomes spectacular, with long valleys, vast coffee and tea plantations, clean and organized towns. This is by far the most beautiful part of Uganda.

Road to Buhoma

On the way back, we take a different road, not less bumpy but neither less spectacular. As we drive along Ishasha, monkeys and baboons cross the road in front of us, some antelopes as well. At some point, a few baboons more used to human contact, occupy the road and make cars stop. As we stop, they come to our window to beg for bananas. We give them one banana and they quickly peel it and devour it. Uganda is such a great place to watch wildlife.

A baboon and her baby begging for bananas

Tracking gorillas in the Impenetrable Forest

The Impenetrable Forest

We had been walking for 3 hours when I asked Maddy, our guide,

- Did the trackers find the gorillas yet?
- Not yet, no luck. It is going to be a long day.

It was a long day, 7 hours tracking gorillas in the rainforest. Maddy warned us beforehand,

- This is not a safari. For safari you go to Queen Elizabeth [the game park] and seat in a car to point animals. Here you have to walk and find them, look for signs, track their path. Sometimes it takes half an hour, sometimes 3 hours, and sometimes you can’t find them.

My only concern was the last part of the statement, we had to find those gorillas. So I just obeyed Maddy’s rather rational advice: ‘the trackers follow the gorillas, and we follow the trackers.’

Every day 3 teams leave Buhoma to track gorillas, one team per family. Only 8 visitors are allowed in each team to which you add a guide, one ranger, and 2-3 trackers who walk 1h ahead of the main group to track the gorillas and try to maximize the probably of success. In addition, you can hire porters. Porters are clearly useless in a day trekking but that is a way of helping the local community and that way ensure the sustainability of the park.

We left Buhoma at 8am at Maddy’s voicing ‘let’s penetrate the impenetrable forest!’ And so we did. Looking from our starting point all I could see was a green mass drawn by opulent tree crowns fighting for light on an overcrowded ground. That was the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, the place that 340 gorillas call home. We were about to track 9 of them, one of the 3 families allowed to receive visitors: one silverback male, two females, 4 teenagers, and 2 babies.

Just like we were told, the rainforest is not an easy place to walk through. Multitude of vegetation fights for light, water and ground, forming a living mesh that seems to grab our feet as we walk. The higher vegetation does not allow us to see more than 4-5 meters ahead but we have Maddy, our guide, who moves through the impenetrable forest as if it is his home.

I am behind Maddy when he shouts ‘They found them!’, meaning the trackers had found the gorillas. More than euphoria I sensed relief among the group. Right until then, Maddy’s face did not inspire optimism and everyone was feeling we could be one of the 10% that are not able to see the gorillas. We walk as fast as we can until we find the trackers. They are lying in the ground, drinking porridge, and waiting for us, ‘they are 2-3 minutes away.’ Maddy drives us a few more meters and all of the sudden he stops, ‘the first one is here, try to be silent from now on and turn off the flashes.’ The moment that everyone expected arrived.

The first one we see is Wagaba, a male teenager. He’s seating in the middle of a bush avidly eating pieces of tender bush. We surround him but he’s immutable, like if we were not there. After a while he starts moving and we follow him. He takes us to his family and that is the entire show. The father Ruhondeza, a large silverback, is eating an entire bush. At his right, one of the babies is hanging from a tree eating berries. After a while, Marayika, another teenager, comes and starts playing next to the father. Ruhondeza just wants to sleep. Kashongo, one of the females, joins the crowd and, wow!, she brings one of the babies attached to her chest. We are literally among them. We are so among them that Kanyone, a girl teenager, grabs Sarah’s arm when she is trying to get a close-up, but in a such gentle way that she seems she’s trying to take a look at the picture.

The shy Kanyone playing with a stick 

The little one eating berries

Ruhondeza, the silverback

Kanyone grabbing Sarah's arm

I cannot believe I can be so close to them, being touched by these gentle giants, watching them playing, eating or sleeping, just like any other family on a weekend. The little one comes to the middle and wants to play but none of his siblings seem very excited with the idea.

The family reunion

Maddy starts counting ’15 more minutes’. We can only be with them for 1h in order to minimize the chance of passing any diseases to the gorillas. When we have to go I take another look at that family, they look so much like us.

The way back to the camp is made in silent; everyone is digesting emotions, strong emotions from an unbelievable experience.

Out for the weekend

I am going to track some mountain gorillas. On Monday, I hope to have pictures at least as good as this one.

The importance of a shinning shoe

Have you ever thought that your reputation could depend on how well you polish your shoes? In fact, not only how well you polish them but how well you keep them shinning.

You might think that reputation would be easy to build but not in Uganda. In a country where most of the roads are not paved, where dust invades every inch of your life and lungs, where people dress formally and wear leather shoes, reputation was never harder to keep.

Believe it or not, I have never seen so many shinning shoes as here. Peter, the receptionist at the University Inn, is an extreme example of a proud Ugandan: impeccable ironed slacks, white shirt, blazer… and immaculate shinning shoes. I asked Peter how is it possible to keep those shoes shinning all the time. ‘You have to walk carefully, over the dust.’ Over the dust? I can only walk through the dust.

Ever since we talked I try to watch him walking around. Maybe I am dreaming but whenever I see Peter walking I can swear he is moving a few inches above the ground. Over the dust, like he says. No wonder he keeps his shoes shinning.

Wood Ants

The tunnel. The legs you see belong to the nightstand, so you have an idea of scale

The little bugs rebuilding part of the destroyed tunnel

My room is under attack of wood ants, or at least that is what I think they are. Last weekend a brown tunnel started to grow under the nightstand, coming from the closet towards the wall. These little bugs are fast and I can imagine they will quickly deplete the closet. Since I will be out of here next week my only concern is to investigate their work.

Every once in a while the cleaning lady comes and destroys the tunnel. That does not deter these ants and, like nothing happened, they resume their work and rebuild the tunnel. I don’t exactly know what is the goal of building a tunnel towards the wall, since the wall is not made of wood. They made a detour towards the bed and I think that is too much for them. Why don’t they stick to the closet and eat it all? Why eating the bed? Isn’t that too much of a challenge for them?

I think it is. I keep telling them that it is a strategic mistake to set such an ambitious goal. They don’t listen to me so I gave up. Whatever they think it’s best for them, I am ok with that. It’s their life.