The trip to Lamwo is hell. There is no other way to put it. If I can somehow manage to post Bree's video of the drive, I will. It makes the road to Gulu seem smooth and well tarmacked. It was dusty and bumpy and spine compacting.
Apollo, our driver, is amazing though and managed to keep us safe. Although, at one point on the drive home when we were leaping all over the place and trying to hold onto the road with our tires that were full of mud from all the rain last night, Apollo did put on his seatbelt. It reminded me of the times on an airplane when the captain tells the flight attendants to put on their seat belts. It's going to be a rocky ride.
On the trip out, we stopped in Kitgum because our bladders were protesting the road. Now I have experienced some interesting toilets from my time in China but when Bree came out and said "good luck" I figured it was going to be a 1 or 2 on a scale of 10 pit toilet. No. It was a flat floor with a drain in the corner. Enough said.
It was 2 hours to Kitgum and then another 45 minutes to Lamwo district. Total distance was 140km. Another 20km and we would have been in South Sudan.
We stopped in one town and picked up a man who was joining us for the presentations. Then we stopped at the office and picked up three more. Then we had to go and meet all the officials of Lamwo District. We shook hands with various local officials and signed at least 5 guest books. We also met Molly, the representative of the president stationed in Lamwo. Nice lady. Don't piss her off though. She's tough.
We continued on our journey to meet more officials and shake more hands. This is necessary in smaller parts of the country because officials need to know when there are visitors. Keeps them in them loop and allows them to ask for money.
We got to the village where we were staying to pick up lunch and the serving girls. We had goat stew, chicken stew, rice, posho, bean stew and greens in simsim sauce for 60 people. Now, in the van, we already have 7 adults and 1 youth and 1 baby, 150 sanitary kits, our luggage, and now we are adding extra large saucepans full of stew and another 6 people. And I think I've mentioned that the road was bumpy. My suitcase was covered in dried goat stew when we got to the hotel.
To get to the site, we had to turn where there was a "road closed" sign. "It's closed further up" we were told.
Our presentation went well but Bree and I were done. We had to shoo the men out before we started but that's common.Everyone had to eat before we could leave and we had to shake more hands with more people. The girls weren't so enthusiastic with the presentation and were more interested in the food. Just made us want to get back to the hotel.
"I wonder if the hotel has internet? Power? Cell service?" We were in hysterics. We had reached that point where we were so tired that we were laughing about everything.
Then we reached the hotel.
This is the entrance to the hotel.
10 rooms in a U shape with the vehicles parked inside. Cement blocks, like a prison, with a bed and a chair. Heavy metal doors that are locked from the inside and metal shutters that allow no air inside the room. It was like an 8x8 solitary confinement cell.
Just away from the rooms are the bathrooms. Two pit toilets but when we arrived, the doors and walls were covered in lizards of assorted sizes scurrying inside and out of the cubicles. Lizards don't harm us but when the door is squirming, it's hard to venture to see what it's like inside. Pits with lizards. When we went to use the pits later on when it was dusk and the lizards had left, Bree entered the first one and walked out quickly. "Huge spider and a 2" cockroach." We used the other stall.
No water. Just large black containers with a cup (a cup, not a bucket but a 250ml cup) to scoop water into the bucket you have in the room to take a "shower." Or you can venture into another stall to wash but it doesn't lock from the inside and it is really small so it would be a challenge. My room had no mosquito net and Bree didn't dare try to use hers. We just swept off the bed with our hands and hoped for the best.
We looked to our trusty Apollo to see if we should leave. His verdict: "there is no water but we will be okay." So we stayed.
We sat in the "dining room" which was two plastic tables in front of the parked vehicles and talked with our hosts for over 2 hours. As there was no power, we felt we should stay up with them as long as possible to be able to just get into our rooms and crash. The solar generator did kick in but neither of our rooms had a light that worked.
We were invited to have dinner but we had only just eaten so we didn't order anything. What came was posho with simsim sauce inside and bush meat stew. What type of bush meat? Antelope or other small deer normally. I asked if they had rodents that they ate as well. A friend of mine ate froofroo in Togo which was like a big guinea pig. "Yes, we have an edible rat." And it was decided that this stew was indeed made of edible rat.
I managed to sleep on top of the bed, in the same clothes I had worn all day, in spurts of 2-3 hours. My door banged in the wind. People talked. I was too hot. I was too cold. Then it was too quiet. But at 6am, the bus to Gulu left and I was thrown out of sleep. I can't describe the horn on these busses but think of the most horrible noise ever, amplify it a hundred times and make it even worse, then honk every two seconds to let people know you are going. I was up.
Our next presentation was lovely. There was some issue that some official lady had not been officially invited to come to the presentations and that any training that happens she should be there and she needed an official invitation and needed to speak officially. I said that was fine but the van was leaving at 10 even if she was still talking. We had met this woman and signed her book and shook her hand but she was still upset. Don't know what happened, she never showed up.
At one point, two girls about 8 and 12 came to the door and I invited them in. The teacher in charge made some comments to our host and we were told that young girls were not usually allowed into these types of trainings. "If we don't teach her, who will?" I demanded. I was going to fight this one tooth and nail. They simply agreed though and we continued. More young girls joined as well.
Okay... And random piece.... Burping incessantly while you are talking face to face with someone is not ok. Wish it was only one but it was almost all the locals. Blame the soda? I don't talk and burp mid word keep talking even when I drink soda.
And what makes sense about pouring soda into water bottles inside the van when you are standing next to the van and there is perfectly good sand beneath your feet to absorb the overflowing soda instead of the van floor? Bree brought that to the girl's attention by saying, "Can you pour the soda onto the ground and not into the van?" No subtlety there. It doesn't work.
We were bound and determined to leave Lamwo by 10 and did manage to get on the road by 10:45 by the time we had dropped people off and returned the soda bottles and chatted with people on the side on the road.
We also had to get 5 litres of fuel in in order to make it to Kitgum where two petrol stations had no fuel before we found a third that did.
We stopped in Kitgum and picked up a 3 year old and a chicken. When we dropped off the host and her bags and babysitter and baby and random child, the chicken stayed very quiet under the seat and was forgotten. Bree suddenly remembered and we had to go back. Poor chicken probably hoped it would come back to Kampala with us to live a happy pet chicken life. I picked it up and carried it to the house, petting it as I went. Bree couldn't believe I was actually carrying the chicken.
We were hot, we were tired, we were dirty. It's one of those times when even if everything is perfect, nothing is perfect.
Whine whine whine. It wasn't me at my best. But Bree did ask me last night at the dinner table as they were eating rat if I was as calm on the inside as I was showing on the outside and I said "yes." Nothing I could do so no point in dwelling too much on it!
Was it worth what we accomplished? Now that I am showered and in my favouritest town in the world, I can say yes. But if a helicopter had landed last night and had offered to take me away, I would have knocked Bree to the ground to get in first!
Stay tuned for the blog that tells you what we did. All this stuff aside, it was an awesome experience.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
2 comments:
Sounds like a day you will remember for a long time....thanks for posting.
Dear Erika,
You stayed where I stayed for a total of 3 months in 2009. I can relate to everyone of your word. The pictures made me smile a little bit. Thank you so much for sharing. I gave up on counseling there because I was dying each day while I was there. God bless you for daring.
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