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Uganda |
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The mystery of a trip, what you can compare it with? Only with the mystery of another trip, they all seem alike, but each one of them is unique. Make one thousand trips and you can have the chance of living one thousand lives. Timisoara Budapest was a drive in an warm early spring sunny day, spots of snow still spread out here and there on the fields. Budapest is cloudy, but once we are up in the air, the setting red sun meets us again, and we fly over the brightly glowing red and gray clouds. The sky is on fire, but we don’t care, our 737 flies high up at 10.000 m, much higher than the burning coals. I fly to Africa, to deliver an accounting and computer training. Some of the trainees do not know what accounting is and I have to teach them what are double entry accounting, general journal, reports, and error discovery and correction techniques. Others do not know what a file is and they have to be instructed about a very efficient use of Excel. I have to present them an accounting program, install it and start with them using it. A piece of cake. The bad news is I have to swallow it. This is very challenging, and I should be happy, I like challenges. A trip is an adventure. The adventure starts when you imagine how things will be, when you get the first information about your destination. And now, in the era of Internet, information is so easy to get. There is quite another thing how correct the information is. But let’s not anticipate, I will simply repeat now what I found out. The Internet let me know that Uganda is a developing country, which is on the right way, but with a lot of problems. The American Embassy in Kampala was closed on January 13 because of fear of terrorist attacks, after the American strikes in Iraq. The half-northern part of the country is unsafe; the same goes for the eastern part, because of the danger of rebel’s attacks. You are advised never to walk the streets or Kampala, someone can attack you, even in daytime. There were two bomb attacks in restaurants. The life expectancy of an adult is 35 years; the infants’ mortality is 11%. The list of things that you don’t have to eat is long. Corruption is high. Never drink water if it doesn’t come from a sealed bottle. Do not have a bath in stagnant waters; there are some worms that get into your skin and then migrate to your internal organs. There are many diseases that you can get: polio, hepatitis, typhoid fever, malaria, Rift Valley fever, etc. The list can continue, I just repeated some of the things, just to be able to discuss later what I really found out myself. But you can imagine that I started the trip with a certain feeling of discomfort. May be someone up there saw my hesitations and decided to give me a last chance. When I arrived in the airport of Amsterdam, where I had to take the next flight to Nairobi and then to Entebbe, I was told that they cannot put me on the plane, because I need a Ugandan visa, and I don’t have one. I tried to explain them that I was told by a business partner in Uganda, that the visa will be solved at the border; but it didn’t help me a bit. The only solution that was available for me was to stay in Amsterdam, go to a Ugandan Embassy, if there is one in the city, and get a visa in several days. The clerk, who otherwise was very kind, wasn’t sure if the nearest Ugandan Embassy is not in Berlin, so may be I have to fly to Berlin. I said I take the risk of going to the Entebbe airport, and if they do not accept me, I will come back. “No, we cannot do that”. In the end I convinced them to let me take the flight to Nairobi, because in Nairobi their computer told them I can buy a Kenyan visa anytime. Now what to do. What if I am delayed in Kenya for several days to get a Ugandan visa. No problem I said, I will use my MCI card, and make all the phone calls I need, Uganda, Kenya. But it didn’t work. I spent more than one hour, in a cycle of dialing the number, getting the message that the call cannot be completed, then being connected to the customer service, an no one of their specialist couldn’t tell me why I cannot make the call. Everything seemed to be all right. In the end I called Sally, and I left a message on the answering machine, then I called my wife to send everywhere SOS emails. The flight to Nairobi was just another long flight in the pitch-dark night, my body screaming for a less distorted sleeping position. In fact I couldn’t sleep. But when we landed in Nairobi, and I looked out of the window at the strange trees with their crowns like funnels, I understood that I am in Africa. And all fatigue was instantly dissipated. During the flight I spoke with a Dutch agricultural specialist who wanted to go to the North of Uganda. I said, “isn’t it dangerous to go there?”. He looked at me with disbelief, his eyes said that I am not from this part of the world. He told me that he worked in Africa in the last 10 years and he never had an incident of any kind. And he has no feeling of a danger. He told me: “don’t worry about anything, you will miss the enjoyment” It is wonderful that I arrived in Nairobi, but what will happen with me now, do I get the right to board the airplane to Uganda? I put on my broadest smile I can imagine when I started speaking to a nice woman at the check in desk. “Hi, there. Do you want to make me happy? I’d like to have a window seat, the best one. Thank you. By the way, I have my luggage checked for Nairobi and would you be able to change the destination? Thank you very much, you helped me a lot, you are an angel”. By that time we became very good friends, but I couldn’t escape the fatal question: “Do you need a visa?”. I looked at her offended, like even the idea of me needing a visa seemed preposterous to me. “Nooop”, I replied, putting all my convincing power in my voice. “What country are you from?”, she continued with a smile. She doesn’t want to give up, does she? She checks on the computer and tells me something quite surprising for me, I do need a visa. “ I will get it there in Uganda”, I said very confidently, wondering how on earth am I going to get it there. But let’s take one thing at a time, don’t worry about the future. “I hope you won’t be sent back” smiled the woman back at me and she handed me a ticket. I’m lucky, I always am when I am. Nairobi airport is a nice one, not very big, but nothing in it of a third world country. People are nice, but when I bought a postcard, I was asked a price in dollars that was double the value on the card in local currency. Good salesmen. In the airport there is a mixture of people quite unusual for me: black people in European suits, or casual modern clothes, Arabs and blacks in very white, shining shirts, long to their ankles, carrying canisters of water from Mecca, Indians with their typical hair covering, women with a red dot on their front. In the waiting room I sat next to an Ethiopian. What can I do while waiting, but make a new friend. He is a nice fellow, lives now in US, and worked the last four years in Uganda. I told him too what I read on Internet. And I saw again that understanding look for the green horns which take for granted everything they read. He told me that Uganda is probably one of the safest countries in Africa, that he does not know of any attacks, and it is certainly much safer that America. He said that for the Americans who write this information on Internet, the only country that is considered safe is their own, which in fact is not at all so. I started to believe that indeed I have to get rid of any worries I could still have. We got up in the air and I saw plots of cultivated land, villages, in some parts even barren dry land, with hardly a tree here or there. It was so good to have a window seat. On the same row with me is a woman from Ethiopia. I found that out when I asked her to tell me how to say thank you in the local dialect. The woman is young and has a very short skirt, that kind that allows some private parts of her body to become public knowledge when she sits down. She is not so disturbing for me. Her son, a very energetic boy of around five-year-old, is. He lowers repeatedly the table in front of her mother, then the one in front of me, he wants to be an expert in lowering tables. He steps on my trousers, he snatches my pen and has a deep desire to study my spectacles. It is even worse when food is served, yogurt, tee, rice with a jam, and other things that can serve as deadly weapons to smudge everything around. And I am around. I have to be all the time on the ready, which helps me a lot, to dodge with expert speed a stabbing movement with the plastic knife to my eyes. I am so busy to improve my advance warning system about the jerky movements of the little darling, that I am completely surprised by the appearance of Lake Victoria, this huge inner sea of Africa, the source of the Nile. The dream of so many explorers is there in front of my eyes, it gives me the feeling that I am a kind of an explorer too. The airport of Entebbe is located on the shore of the lake and we approach it flying at very low altitude above the surface of the lake. Very strange for me, to see the shore full of some white birds, like cranes, suddenly coming to you. One of the things that I knew from Internet is that it is very advisable not to use your camera on the airport, people had troubles with the military for doing that. Out of the plane the first thing that I did was to go to an officer and ask him if I can take a picture. “Certainly”, he said, “take whatever picture you want”. And the first picture I wanted to take was that of dear darling Richard, who waited for me. He is a real problem solver. He made in advance the necessary phone calls and getting the visa was as difficult as buying a bus ticket. Richard is very well connected. While waiting at the airport he introduced me to a friend of him, the Minister of Health. He spent the night before with another friend of his, the vice-president. Is good to have a friend like Richard in Uganda. In front of the airport there was a group of teenagers, singing and dancing, beating drums, in honor of the return of the president, Mr.Museveni. I do not know how they came there, spontaneously or arranged somehow, but for me the show was fascinating. The movement of their bodies was so natural, so vivid, never a European will be able to move this way. Fascinating was for me anything around the airport, the nice flowers, the lush vegetation, even the air smells differently, a fresh smell that somehow reminds me of squeezed plants. All the drive from the airport to the hotel I feel the enchantment of a little boy, banana trees lined along the road, the mirror of the lake that accompanies us everywhere, the road with shops almost in every house. On the side of the road there is a display of all the merchandise they offer, bananas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, different other fruits that I never saw before, chicken in small cages, wood for fire, bricks to build houses, stone ledges, armchairs, strong iron doors, a many miles long supermarket. The hotel is nice, people are very kind, and the room with a magnificent view to the lake is huge, 9 by 6 meters (not including the bathroom). There is furniture in it, but because the room is so big you have the feeling of an empty room. On the floor a very large carpet, near the windows ceramic tiles make you feel so well when you step on them bare footed. I have phone in my room and a TV. The bathroom is very nice and has toilet paper, a thing I was strongly advised to bring with me by some Americans, as it is not standard option. There are some things here that could be improved. The first thing that I wanted to do is to have a shower, but the shower doesn’t work. That is a good reason not to provide any shampoo, body lotion, and other small things that normally hotels offer and there is only one towel. There are no hangers in the wardrobe. In the wardrobe there are no shelves to put your clothes. In the afternoon I wanted to sleep half an hour and I asked the reception to wake me up. “No problem”, they said. And indeed I wasn’t a problem for them, they forgot me completely. The same goes for waking me up this morning. A special note for the ones using computers is the frequent electricity interruption, just two-three seconds, enough to reset your computer, or even destroy it, because of transient currents. In fact the neighborhood is cut from electricity for many hours, but the hotel has its own generators, that take over in several seconds. But these are too small details even to notice. It is not a complain, just a description what a first class luxury hotel can be. *** An African night is a night of sounds. In front of my window, on the terrace of the restaurant people laugh loudly and merrily until late in the night, I so much enjoy to hear how happy they can be. Dogs bark, birds chirrup some songs I never heard before. In the morning a violent storm starts, my windows are shattered, and thunders growl angrily. I draw aside the heavy curtains in front of the windows, to better see the show, but there is not much to be seen. The fog covers everything and I can’t see the beauty of thunders, they are like a distant glittering and that’s all. Down a dirt road, little yellow muddy streams carry the soil to the lake Victoria, and then it is taken down the Nile. This same soil made the bounty of old Egypt, and allowed the old civilization to exist. At every flooding it was deposited on the banks of the Nile, a rich, fat mud, a several thousand miles long oasis in the middle of the surrounding Egyptian dessert. The Nile is what we visit the second day of my stay. Richard is a mind reader and arranges to take us all for the trip to see several waterfalls and the source of the Nile, a trip that I haven’t imagined I will ever make. The drive to the Nile is for me amazing, I see so many plants and trees and fruits, that I never knew they exist. I see the bustling cities, white dressed Muslims gathered around mosques, women in traditional dresses, a part of the rain forest, people gathering coffee, or drying it on the ground in front of their huts. Probably I will never get accustomed to driving on the left side of the road, inherited from colonial time, I always think that we will have a direct hit collision with the car in front coming on the wrong side. What makes the feeling even more vivid is the style of almost all drivers to go on the central line of the road and avoid the other car in the last moment. One of the main reasons of Uganda’s strategic position is its control of the source of the Nile. The lake Victoria is a huge reservoir, almost an inner see, which collects the rain and snow melting from the surrounding mountains. The water from it, a massive amount, start what is the 6000 km long Nile river, heading north to Sudan and Egypt and bringing life along its shores in a desert region. Uganda could use this water of Lake Victoria for irrigation purposes, or to sell it to some neighboring countries, hardly in need of water. This possible alternative makes Egypt especially very nervous, it would mean a disaster for it. To see the waterfalls helps you understand your real dimension in front of the forces of the nature. The fall are not very high, but the colossal volume of roaring white foam, webbing, eddying and turning makes you happy that you are on the shore, and not in the water. The spring of the Nile is in fact the whole lake Victoria. Though it is considered as spring the place where is the outlet that starts the Nile. I am surprised to see here a monument in the honor of Mahatma Gandhi, who decided in his will, that his ashes are to be thrown in spring of the Nile. *** There are so many things about Uganda that are misconceptions and false dangers. One though is real: Aids. Both in Uganda and in Tanzania the AIDS percentage is huge, somewhere between 10 and 20%. The cause for that is the war, sometimes the rather loose family relations, lack of understanding of basic protection and in the countries around Uganda, some local habits. In Tanzania, in the northern region, during the festivals anyone can pick randomly the partner, no matter the marital status, and one entire clan can be infected in a very short time. Masai in Kenya have another habit, any man in the tribe can come to your wife while you are away and plant a spear in front of the door of the hut, meaning that he doesn’t want to be disturbed. And it is not a poetry reciting that the husband would interrupt. It is very difficult to assess for me the real living standard of the people in this part of the world. The statistics indicate a $300 yearly income for a Tanzanian. Though, the salaries they make are of the order of magnitude of some East European countries. Someone who just graduated college is probably to receive as first salary $90 a month in Tanzania, $150 in Uganda and $300 in Kenya, when a Romanian would receive something like $100. In Kenya a University professor is supposed to receive around $450 a month, (a high salary for a Romanian), having additional advantages of a loan for a car, a loan for a house, free medical insurance. Still I think that Romanians live much better, I simply do not know how to explain that. On the other side, it is unimaginable for them to understand the scarcity of products that we had in Romania in the time of communism: 1 kg of sugar a month, five eggs a month, three liters of milk a months, etc. In Tanzania, which seems to have the worst situation from all the other neighboring countries, they still could buy everyday a kg of sugar or similar products. The living conditions are certainly different from Europe, but they do not have to face the hard wintertime, a house is just a protection against rain and against thieves that would want to rob your property. The houses are therefore not at all so sturdy, in fact there wasn’t a practical need for that. The basic architectural module is a box the size of a garage, and a house is made from one or several such modules, each one with its own door. The building material is brick. In the countryside many houses are made of wooden poles and the space between the poles is filled with mud. The front part of a house, the one facing the road is used for business, anything imaginable, trade, repair shops, workshops to produce furniture, fashion shops. The back part of the house is a copy or the front part, another row of boxes, which are used for living. The life of the house is continued in front of it, and this place is used by children to play, as a display case for the merchandise, as a rest place for people to talk and socialize, or just a storage space for different agricultural products, like coffee beans, to dry in the sun. I was surprised to see that many houses have bars at the windows and very solid doors at each or the doors with big padlocks, which means that thieves are not an unknown species around here. In some residential areas the architectural pattern is broken, and European style houses are built. In the part of the Kampala where the hotel is, I see out of the window some very nice houses, with 10-20 rooms, nice architecture, shining red tiles on the roof. The area is especially attractive, because the hills form a kind of amphitheater with the center the shore of Lake Victoria, and the view is wonderful from any house built here. When I walked past those houses I saw something else, from outside they look like fortresses, with high walls, barbed wire or broken glass on top, electronic surveillance equipment, armed guards. The guards carry guns, from old rifles to machine guns, and our hotel is also protected like that. Protection is good business here, one of the biggest advertising in the booklet of Uganda Airways is for electrified fences. I was interested to know something more of the local languages, but I saw no resemblance with anything I know. The languages have many vowels, like the Italian, and many times the same root is repeated, like in takataka (garbage). I think that there is a similarity between these languages, because people from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, have the same way of distorting the English language. Probably a less skilled in English speaker will say kabo for cable, sop for soap, shut for shirt. I heard songs in the native languages and they are very attractive, the language certainly adds to their exotic charm. One way to see what a country considers as important problems is to watch local TV programs. A short advertising warns of the danger of cholera, how it is transmitted and what to do to avoid it, boil everything, do not eat cold food, etc. A similar spot asks for help for AID suffering people. Coca-Cola is certainly present, and so are the Japanese motorcycles. On another channel a Christian missionary from South Africa delivers a very interesting, funny, entertaining comment about a right positive attitude, she is a real artist. The health program is dedicated to washing your teeth. A doctor explains the general principles. Then a woman with a strong African accent, saying “tits” when she wants to say “teeth”, describes how thoroughly washing your tits with a brush and paste removes bacteria from your tits. A volunteer washes the teeth while someone makes a drawing of what happens in the mouth of the volunteer. A demonstration is done on a huge plaster model. Plenty of details for half an hour. Probably one of the main characteristic of the people of Uganda is their love for music an especially dancing. A new Aral gas station is opened and a group of dancers is there. When the president comes dancers wait for him. The TV transmission for handicapped people starts with a group singing and dancing, all of them have missing limbs, but it doesn’t prevent them from dancing using the remaining part of the body. One guy with crutches, suddenly takes a four-meter long pole, place it vertically on the ground, than climbs along the pole to the top in a dancing movement. Unbelievable the agility, the force of the arms, the sense of equilibrium and the feeling of music. When Ugandan dance, men or women, they abandon themselves to the rhythm, the body undulates, waves and shivers in a mesmerizing, luring, enticing movement, all the parts of the body being one in an amazing harmony. *** The training today went beyond my best expectations. I covered with the team the entire accounting manual I wrote, and it went unexpectedly smooth. People showed genuine interest and it seems to me that they are eager to hear the rest. Today I finished the training by about five and I said it is just about time to have a direct contact with the reality. So I walked from the hotel to the outskirts of Kampala. I entered those garages like shops, to see what is available. I discussed with people in improvised bars, with shopkeepers, with Joseph, my friend the taxi driver. In a Design shop I found out from a beautiful lady what is the nature of the business, that for a pair of trousers I have to pay about $30, and I saw for the first time the inside of such a garage, very simply furnished. A shopkeeper in a metal-sheet made shop for Chinese herbs told me about different ointments and pills and plasters. I entered different food shops and I saw what people buy. People are very open, friendly, very much willing to have a chat. My friend Joseph advised me to stop by him on my return if it is more than eight o’clock, to drive me back in his taxi, if I walk someone could try to take my camera or steal my money. At seven a clock I returned, I said it is enough time to walk before darkness comes. Big mistake, darkness comes here near the equator with an incredible speed, and in twenty minutes, the time it took me to get back, it was complete darkness. I walked the rather empty road along fortified walls, in the end I almost ran, and I had a definite feeling of discomfort, to say the least. I will never make this mistake again. *** My friend Mac, the chef at International hotel gave me one evening a short history of Uganda. In 1965, the life in Uganda was better than in Kenya, which is considered a developed country of Africa. Then in 1971, Idi Amin took the power and inaugurated a very cruel dictatorship. He threw away the Indians, who controlled much of the economic life, and lost the support of international community. In 1974 the situation was really very bad, the Indians took with them the economic knowledge. In all the Amin time, Mac was afraid to switch on the light in the evening. Someone could see that he is home and could come to kill him. Amin’s followers simply entered your home and took whatever they wanted. Obote, the president that Amin overthrew, found support in Tanzania, and launched skirmishes in Uganda. In 1978 Amin decided to put an end to it, and attacked Tanzania. He went deep into Tanzania, then he was pushed back into Uganda. In 1980 he was defeated, and Obote came back to power. Mac’s situation became even worse, Obote and his men were even more bloodthirsty than Amin. Amin killed any opponents. Obote improved the method and killed not only anyone standing up against him, but also anyone connected to them. Whole villages were wiped out. This terror triggered a resistance movement and in 1985 Obote was defeated. In 1996 the leader of the “Movement”, Mr. Museveni became president. He forbade all political parties but inaugurated a lot of positive reforms. Now the country has 2% inflation and 6% annual increase rate. Mac thinks that if nothing wrong will happen, in ten years they will be again at Kenya level. Now many people would like to see a multi party system. Mac is not so sure that this is a good thing, he has time to think until the referendum next year. After the war it was really needed that one strong force unites all Ugandan, may be now is the time for a change. But politicians will always want to protect their owns interests and will never think of those who voted them. It is true that now corruption is huge, but at least the president is clean. In the country exist so many tribes, but Mac thinks that some unity was created by intermarriages between tribes. No one wants separation, in the end all will loose. Some tribes would like indeed to take the power, but there is little chance. I asked Mac, what he thinks is the cause for the high percentage of AIDS. The war with Tanzania brought it in Uganda. When Ugandan troops invaded Tanzania, they got into a region in northern part of this country where the disease existed, and they got infected. Later Tanzanian troops invaded Uganda and the disease spread like fire. In war time no one really takes protective measures against possible sexual diseases. When the war was over, people started to die, but they believed that a curse was on them because the killing they did in Tanzania. Only the regime of Museveni had the courage to speak out the truth, which was the only solution to stop the disaster. Now there is a complete openness about the subject: TV programs, advertising, posters. Kids older than 13 learn about it in school. This led to very good results. In 1985 72% of all pregnant women had AIDS, now the percentage is 17% Mac is only a chef, but he gave me an expert lecture about his country. *** Not only Ugandans have a good impression about Ugandans. I met an Englishman in the hotel, which knew Uganda for many years and was in a rather difficult business trip; he had to recover a debt of 50.000 pounds from an Ugandan client. The Englishman hunted the client for several days, than he heard the story of people being killed in similar situations, and was ready to give up the money and go home alive. Even if he was mad about the loss, he said that the local people are very nice and friendly, and for several crooks one shouldn’t disconsider them all. We discussed about an article in a newspaper. It said that rebels eat their captives, because they do not have food and the Englishman believes that this could be true. He also gave me a new possible inside about the living conditions. He said that indeed no European would live in the houses in the country side, but these people are much happier than the Europeans, there is abundance of food, there is not much work to get it, no stress, you can just stay in the jungle and enjoy life. I do not know if this could be true, I had no chance to speak directly to those people. *** One can find out a lot about a country if you know the average family budget. Probably $100 could be considered a monthly income. Two rooms in a garage type house are rented for $50. The rooms have no running water, no bathroom, the latrine is in the back of the house. For cooking one can use a charcoal stove placed in front of the house, in the open space between the house and the road. Sometimes you get electricity, but no phone. Transportation from one side of Kampala to the other is about $18 a month. Food expense varies a lot function of the income, from $10 to $60 a month. Those who can afford it, buy a $2 lunch at a restaurant, others buy a doughnut for 20 cents, of eat one or two bananas. Supper is the main meal and consists of matoke, a kind of bananas boiled or steamed (taste like potatoes), a root called kasawa, ground peanuts, posho (hard-boiled maize flour). Chicken or other kind of meat is eaten once a week. One of the most profitable businesses in Uganda is beer production. There are two breweries that have customers all year long, here is an eternal summer and a beer tastes well in summer time. Probably 60% of men and 30% of women drink several bottles of beer at the end of the week in bars. I was told that many men drink almost all evenings of the week. One beer is $1, and this is an expensive amusement. Beer consumption fluctuates, on Rhamadan days, when Muslim people are not allowed to drink anything, the beer consumption drops. The conclusion of my Ugandan friends was that Muslims have here a more relaxed attitude about alcohol. For those who cannot afford to buy a beer there is a simpler solution, a local gin, that allows you to get drunk with limited costs. Anyhow the burden of alcohol consumption on someone’s budget is important, probably 10-15% is spent for this. If you draw the line, at the end of the month there isn’t much left, and personal savings are almost non existent. *** Where is the future of the country? I met a very energetic and enterprising woman, Martha, who started to produce yogurt in her kitchen for Sheraton hotel. Later she increased the number of clients to five, all very high-class hotels. She is very concerned about quality and picks with extreme care the milk supplies. Now any quality control is done using only the taste and smell, and probably in time some more advanced quality control method will be introduced. I am quite sure that there are others who are enterprising, and I regret I haven’t had the chance to meet them. *** The future lies also in the strong desire to learn. When I went to Uganda for the Accounting and Computer Training, I had no idea about the level of the people that I was to train, and no image about their interest to study such abstract, and boring for the layman, knowledge. Now I know, their interest to acquire new knowledge is very high, they are very well motivated to learn. If I compare the level of this class with other training courses I organized, this was one of the best groups I ever instructed. There are still some cultural differences. My private company organized in five years numerous computer-training classes and we instructed about 4000 people. I can say I have a certain experience in reading the class, when people sit silent or frown, they do not understand. When why lean back and yawn, they are bored. Smiling and a curious look means understanding. Sound of excitement, speaking to the next fellow, large hand movements means the pleasure of discovery. This class was impossible to read. I started and everyone stood silent in their chairs, stern looks, no comments. I said, I lost them. I repeated everything in a simpler way. Again no reaction. I repeated only the basics and again nothing, no smile, no flinch, no movement. I thought in my mind, what am I going to do this week? But, when I asked them questions and started the work with them I saw that very rarely they haven’t understood something. This was only the first day, then they started to defreeze. I repeated many times my motivational speech, how much their life is going to change due to their financial and computer knowledge, what new perspectives will open for them, both personally or for some private company they want to start. I forced them to move several times, stand up to see some short demonstration on my laptop. I could have done this on a larger computer, but like that they were obliged to move and modify their body position. The chairs were set like in a class, the computers arranged in front of them like a protecting fence. I changed the pattern and I made a circle, to be not a teacher, but one of them. I harassed them with questions, I rewarded the good answers tossing chocolates or candies at them, and I made sure that I get an answer from each one of them. I forced them in turn to take the pen and come in front of the flip chart to give a short answer to the rest. From the second day we began having a real dialog. And their desire to know grew more and more. I announced them that I am at their disposal not only until five o’clock, but any other time in the evening, and they took advantage of it. I was asked many other questions about economics and how to run a business, I developed a small Excel program for Martha to run the accounting of her company. I felt so great, it is wonderful to feel that you are useful. The desire to know was not limited to my class. One night at about one o’clock my phone rang and I grabbed the phone with the quick reaction of the Sleeping Beauty. At least sleeping I was, that’s no doubt, I don’t know about the beauty. A guy from the reception wanted to know if I am the teacher for the computer course organized in the hotel and if he could also be involved somehow. The next day a woman at the reception asked me the same question. She said that she knows that education costs, and it is not easy to get, that she studies some economics and she would be very much interested to know more. I was so much ashamed that I cannot spend some hours with these people, but it was the last day, I had to go to the airport. Education is not so easy to get, it costs. Families are rather large, 7-8 kids are quite normal. May be the food does not cost so much if you live at a farm, but to keep so many kids in school costs too much. The official policy is to encourage family planning and a reduction of children per family, but the success is relative. *** On the side of the road there are many eateries that offer grilled meat, and I was intrigued to see how well the meat is done, it is almost burned. Later I discovered a possible answer. The sanitary conditions of preparing meat are rather poor. The butcheries have no refrigerator and the meat hangs outside at 30 degrees Celsius (88 Fahrenheit) from morning till night. I saw a butchery like that at the side of a road under repair, where the air was filled with dust like a fog, and the meat was there, hanging out in the dust. *** Corruption is considered by many the worst problem of the country. The story about a high official in the military, who took a commission of $900.000 for a helicopter delivery, is true. Since it was considered that anyone could take a commission for a business, the president forgave the guy. *** If you go to Uganda, be prepared to bargain. Everything is negotiable. Locals negotiate a 10-15% reduction. In my case the first price that I was asked when I wanted the mango was 500% higher than the normal price, and a foreigner should negotiate much larger reductions. There is now a tendency of offering fixed prices, because of the appearance of larger shops, with several employees. In such a shop it is difficult for the owner to know what the employee negotiate, and a fix price is the only solution. If you are a foreigner, buy there. *** The last evening in Uganda we were invited at Richard’s farms. The farm is located on the shore of Lake Victoria and Richard has there a wonderful house. The view is breathtaking. We sat in chairs under a tent on the very well tended green grass, we drank beer and admired the golden red glittering path the setting sun traced on the surface of the lake, the boats on the lake, some birds like cranes walking on the shore. Richard set for us a wonderful dinner, different meals prepared in palm leaves and grilled meat. When the darkness engulfed us, several electric bulbs created the right light to see your partners, but in the same time not to destroy the mystery of the moment. The bulbs had to be placed at a significant distance from us, because swarms of flies immediately gathered around them. The flies are so numerous that people from the islands catch them with pieces of cloth and prepare them with vegetables, it is said that they have a good fish taste. Richard told me a story from the time when he was a sales representative for Mercedes. Idi Amin wanted to have two luxury Mercedes cars and the order was given to Richard. Richard flew to Germany to pick them. Some American newspapers found out about this delivery and printed the story. When Richard returned with the cars, he was met by a furious Amin, who wanted to kill him. Amin imagined that Richard delivered the information. Fortunately to Richard, a German technician showed to Amin the TV cameras mounted in the car, that recorded the arrival of Amin, and told him that he could send these images all over the world. Then the German showed the luxurious interior of the car, explained to Amin how he could meet some other presidents in this car and what an extraordinary impression he could make on them. Amin was so pleased with the new cars that he forgot about killing. These killing threats were no jokes, you were simply arrested and the next day you no longer existed. The life under the next dictator was even worse. Richard organized once a party at his property in honor of a local football teem, where many militaries were also invited. In this time, insurgents attacked the barracks of the soldiers. The militaries believed that Richard created the feast just to give a chance to the insurgents, came to his place destroyed his hotel, killed many people and left. When he returned, Richard had to tear off the hotel completely, there were too many corpses in it. In fact the suspicion of the militaries was not completely unfounded, Richard in fact was supporting the guerrilla groups. I sat under the tent, in the dome of the night, I listened to the crickets and to the sound of laughing voices telling stories. Stories of unknown people to me, with difficult to remember names, who saved someone from being killed, or got killed, how people survived, eerie stories told as a matter of fact, this is life, let’s enjoy that we are still alive. And people around me really enjoyed the pleasure of the moment, and I had a wonderful time with them. *** Have you ever been suddenly awake in the middle of the night, after a nightmare, looking around, trying to see where is the fine border between dreams and reality? Late in the night at the hotel I was awaken by the barking of dogs. An animal, I do not know what it was, filled the night with its howling like a wolf, and all dogs barked. Then again the long, long howling, and the barking. And again, and again. I sat in the bed wondering how many times the Ugandans wake up now in the dark of the night, still hearing the howling of some thirsty for blood animals. Uganda can certainly have a future, a country where you can get bumper crops all year round, a high hydroelectric potential, people very kind and very much willing to learn and adapt to the new world. The memory of past wars still weighs heavily and old animosities still have to be fought. Corruption is very bad enemy. But what Mac and others like him hope has a high chance to be achieved. Dorel Jurcovan January 1999 |