The night before my departure I was invited to dinner and suddenly the conversation turns toward umuganda – Rwandan community service that happens once a month on a Saturday morning; it also means there are no taxis, shops are closed – everyone is working for the community. So I got up early and walked down to the bus station – it took me an hour and it was quite a nice walk actually – especially considering I would be in more or less the same position for the next 10 hours…
I got there, the bus left on time and we drove towards the border with Uganda. After an hour and half we had already arrived at the border – thanks to umuganda there was hardly any traffic. At the border everyone had to get off and get the exit stamp for Rwanda and then walk across the 700m strip of ‘no-man’s land’ to Uganda. That stretch was gridlocked with lorries and cars – in between there were bicycle taxis, people, cows, you name it. I was wondering how on earth the bus would get through this mess in due time – but I am learning that you don’t ask these questions, you just find a nice spot and wait.
The Ugandan border police were very nice and gave me my visa no problem. As the bus was somewhere at the other side of chaos I sat down and munched on some cream crackers and observed the general happenings. After about half an hour I decided to text Tina to tell her I’d crossed the border but was still waiting for the bus – just as I was typing these words, the bus suddenly came round the bend – there had not been that many lorries coming through the barrier, so I honestly don’t know how they did it – I was impressed.
We all got back on board, they checked our passports for visas; after all you wouldn’t take someone on board who is not allowed in a country, would you? Then the barrier opened and we hit the road – this time on the left hand side; just as I was getting used to right hand side traffic ;-)) the minute we hit Ugandan roads the bus driver started honking his crazy horn like mad and must have at least doubled the speed compared to Rwanda; I had finally arrived in Africa ;-))
The journey took us through more lush green hills along winding roads. Eventually the vegetation started changing and banana trees gave way to grasslands and the hills became less and less high – we were sloping down into the lowlands. I was dozing off regularly and at one point I opened my eyes and looked out the window and wow! Zebras and impalas, right there, grazing 200 yards from the road… Africa! It was such a brief moment but it really impressed me; I have never seen wild zebras or impalas in my life – amazing.
Travelling on African roads is generally quite an experience; there are all sorts of sights: a sign by the road pointing away from the street, reading ‘coffins’; a carpenter who obviously makes coffins exhibiting samples near the road, himself lying on top of one listening to his little radio – most normal thing ever! Entire families of 6 on motorbikes racing along the dusty roads, women carrying all sorts on their head, people pushing bicycles which are buried under any imaginable items and of course cows and goats.
Hours later I asked the dude next to me where we were so I could let Tina know – turned out we were still about 3 hours from kampala… so I tried to find a comfortable position in my seat and block out the illegally loud Nigerian soap operas they were playing on the telly; at least they were not the mega-crap ultra-violent martial arts films they like showing in south America ;-))
After god knows how many episodes ‘when god says yes’ or ‘arrested by love’ (I am not sure which one we were watching, and I have a feeling it doesn’t really matter; it’s all drama, drama, drama) we seemed to be reaching the outskirts of kampala and the dude put on some music videos promoting the producer… I am not sure which was worse, the soap opera or the religious videoclips with 5 African dudes in white suits singing about being honest and humble in what looked like a graveyard.
And very suddenly the bus turned right into the bus station where the journey ended. I got off, a bit dazed and confused, got my bag and went to the ticket office to get my return ticket for 4 days later. I was told they didn’t have tickets for May yet – there were 3 days to go to May ;-)) – maybe tomorrow. Well, tomorrow I would be in car bombing up north to attend a hip hop festival for peace.
So I just sat down on the stairs after fobbing off all the taxi drivers in that neighbourhood and waited for Tina. I saw her walk into the bus station looking around and not seeing me – despite me being the only white woman around – where is Wally?
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