Uganda - The Pearl of Africa

We arrived at Entebbe airport and drove into Kampala mid afternoon on Saturday after a short flight from Nairobi.  Flying over magnificent Lake Victoria as you come in towards the airport is heart-stoppingly beautiful, even on a grey day. As you get off the plane, across the airport building is a sign – “Welcome to Uganda – Pearl of Africa.”

Gulzar, who went to University in Kampala as a young woman and who returned after Idi Amin had wrecked the country, to work on a School Improvement Initiative, told me that this is what Winston Churchill had said about Uganda, and it stuck.

The drive into Kampala was like most drives from African airports – congested, noisy and through fairly depressed areas.  We saw caribou storks circling as we approached the city which, like Rome, is built on seven hills.  Our Hotel was the Golf Course Hotel – very luxurious and well placed, but a blot on Uganda’s name as it was built with state funds appropriated quite illegally but unashamedly by the President’s wife!  It happens everywhere.

On Sunday morning we set off on the long journey to Soroti – about 7 hours north east of Kampala.  It is quite a distance but the last 100km was on really potholed roads, and we were competing with huge lorries and tankers, as the rail service has broken down and the roads are used too much and by vehicles it was never designed for.  Sound familiar?

As we left Kampala I was struck by the lushness of the countryside.  Gulzar told me that they say you can throw a stick down anywhere and it will grow! The first 100km or so out of Kampala was characterised by lots of mixed farming on small plots next to the houses which line the road – maize, millet, sweet potatoes, and fruit trees of all sorts. Every scrap of land is used – right down to the road reserve.  In the little towns there are “dukas” or shops selling airtime, bricks and masses of iron doors and gates – what they are used on, I couldn’t imagine.  Every second house has a MTN, Airtel or one of the other service provider signs painted on it.

A little further on we came to masses of sugar cane fields, all belonging to one big, family company.  They were chased out by Idi Amin, but 20 years later, they came back and re-established their empire.  There are also tea plantations and rice paddies which seem to be commercial enterprises. 

In the villages there are churches and mosques, side by side, and lots of little schools along the sides of the road.  And everywhere stalls selling bananas, pineapples, mangoes, tomatoes, maize, cassava and cooked meats as well as the ubiquitous coca cola and Fanta.

We crossed a huge swamp and a lake which has been dammed for HEP and the terrain seemed to change – much drier, scrubby and thorny.  Here the main crop for sale on the side of the road was charcoal, packed in rope bags.  Houses close to the swamp were thatched with papyrus stalks and stood like little pagodas with their tiered roofs.  Further away, the houses were thatched with shabby grass.

The last part of the road was boring, bumpy and slow.  By the time we reached Soroti and arrived at the landmark Hotel we were ready to fall into bed.  Another long and busy day ahead as we start the Uganda leg of our trip.