Tag Archives: kihihi

License to Live

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Errand day in Southwest Uganda. Am short on shillings so I must travel 40km to Kihihi, home of the lifeblood of cash–an ATM machine. Need a couple of passport photos and a haircut. If lucky, I’ll knock out those chores, buy my driver a rolex (not THAT, but a couple of scrambled eggs rolled in a chapati, like a tortilla), and get back to Bwindi before lunch.

Everything is pretty cheap here in rural Uganda. There are a number of neighborhood markets, selling wash soap, biscuits (cookies), sodas, sandals, produce. I like to spoil the aba kazi (women) in the Communications Office with biscuits, a somosa or donut. Keeps them happy.

Call Johnson, one of my favorites, a soft-spoken but loyal boda (motorbike) driver for the the one hour-plus ride over unpaved roads to our destination.

johnson plate

Fairly early in today’s journey, I hear a metallic sound hitting the ground. I don’t turn figuring we ran over something. Foreshadowing.

I arrived here in March during the “rainy season.” I saw more rain in the first 6-8 weeks than my Northern California home has seen in two years (20 inches). Traveling during the rainy months is difficult, as the dirt roads get wasted. Most are not engineered properly so water flows down the streets, carving huge channels. Oh, and climbing a hill in a small car is always exciting.

I miss the rainy season.

Since mid-May, the rain has given way to the dry season. Days and nights are mostly clear, the roads firm. But the dust is plentiful, overwhelming, a health concern.

When cars, trucks or bodas drive by, they kick up a cloud of dust that will envelop anyone walking. If I don’t take a handkerchief while I walk to cover my face, I’m asking for trouble in the form of sinus infection or worse.

On our ride to Kihihi today we encounter a couple of large trucks that throw up blinding dust in our way. Nevertheless, it went pretty well. Once we parked in front of the bank, we noticed the license plate of the boda was missing. Wait. Was that the metallic sound hitting the ground that I heard?

OK, so will that be a problem? I go to the bank, to the photo place next door while Johnson gets a temporary permit. Meantime, power is out in the town at 11 a.m. so the photo place cannot print my photos, and the barber’s clippers won’t operate.

We walk to the roadside rolex place, order a couple and relax.

After the meal, we climb on the boda and head home. Being the faithful optimist that I am, I feel confident that we can find the AWOL plate, so long as no one picked it and tossed it.

About 20km to go to Bwindi, we stop in Butogota where Johnson chats with boda drivers waiting under a shade tree. He explains his issue, some of them nod and exclaim before we move on. Still I’m fairly certain we will get it. Then the phone rings.

Johnson reverses course as someone has found the plate and is holding it. We double back three minutes, meet Enoch, a store owner who shows the plate. He found it, notified someone, who may have notified someone else who notified Johnson. I was trying to learn the exact sequence but this Primary-4 level speaker had some difficulty keeping up with the advanced-level local Rukiga.

Nevertheless, it was nothing short of a miracle, I believe, that we recovered the plate. It was all fairly easy. Given my proclivity to thank the Lord for anything and everything, we assigned the credit to Mukama.

The Lord has been so faithful to me during these five months. He hears my every call and complaint. Answers come quickly.

I am blessed. I love my life here with these people, speaking in their tongue, having never felt so free and authentic. Things always work out.

First World Trouble

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Been in Uganda more than a month now. Adapting well to the new reality: poor transport over moonscape roads, intermittent wifi, scarce power at times to charge my Apple family of devices.

Now add inability to access lifeblood of cash.

Even here in Bwindi there is a need for currency. I need Ugandan shillings to support the bevy of boda drivers I rely on for quick lifts from my home to the guest house for one of my three squares. More is needed for airtime for my Ugandan cellphone used for chats and texts of plans and schedules. I talk too much it appears.

Saturday morning, Paul and I set out for Kihihi to visit the Stanbic Bank ATM to get large sums of shillings ($100 = 250,000 UGS). Paul is one-half of an Episcopal missionary couple that arrived about the time I did. He and wife, Barbara, have 30-years experience in Africa and elsewhere as long-term workers. They’ll be here for three years!

I arranged for a lift in a hospital vehicle, a Toyota Landcruiser that easily handled the unpaved surface. We got to within 5 miles of Kihihi where we were disgorged and piled onto a boda for the rest of the trip.

It was hardly smooth sailing. Two muzungus behind the driver who took a safari-like shortcut through the brush to get us to our destination.

Arrived safely at the ATM, a familiar spot that I’ve visited several times in the past year. OK, let’s get going then get on our way.

NOT!

UNABLE TO COMPLETE TRANSACTION shouted the computer screen. Paul tried his Visa card after me and got the same result. We tried other cards, same result. There would be no cash from Stanbic.

My driver friend, Chris, lives in Kihihi, so I summoned him with a call and directed him to take Paul and me to Kunungu where there were two more banks to ply our plastic.

Forty minutes later we were face-to-face with the fact that neither of of the two banks accepted Visa cards. Visa, the biggest card company of them all, left me with my hands in my empty pockets.

In this land of subsistence living, a couple of Americans frustrated in their attempts to get cash is hardly noteworthy. But it points out the vast cultural differences between guests and hosts.

Residents here work and scrape for any advantage over the daily demand for food, water, heat. Guests, like me, do the best we can under austere conditions but continually look for conveniences of home…