Introduction:
His first Ugandan site is usually the Entebbe airport in the far south of the country, near Lake Victoria. He had prepared so many documents at the visa office in Beijing (where I traveled from) yellow fever certification, bank statements, photocopies of various forms. After entering the immigration and visa extension line, I was met by a rather large lady behind bulletproof glass. She said, “passport” Stamp, one month extension, “thank you sir have a good stay” I pushed all the papers, she looked at me, no need, bye! I was so disappointed if she had known the sweat and tears putting it all together in China before I arrived, surely she would just be looking to make me feel better.
Kampala
The capital of Uganda is Kampala, sprawling, dirty, on a hill, crowded and downright smelly. Is it exciting for the visitor? Are there fascinating things to see? Do you feel like you are in the depths of Africa? Maybe not, but you have just arrived and you begin to discover that the sidewalks are full of holes, cracks and unevenness. So walking meant keeping a constant eye on your feet, the person coming towards you, and the many obstacles in your way. I remember seeing a picture of a (Hindu) temple, in the brochure of the Ugandan consulate in Beijing, looking so magnificent and white. Yes, here it was, dirty, damaged in many places and weathered. This was going to be a common thing in Kampala between tourist photos and reality, this is a city that is in ruins, and even the new buildings that look about 10 years old look worn and tired. The damage is everywhere, on the road, the streets, the buildings and the environment in general. As for the city center, it is one of the worst I have seen. The best they could do with the place is tear it down and start over. Can I say something complementary well to be honest right? Yet this is East Africa, abandoned by colonialism in 1962 and away from tribalism ever since. Where HIV and polygamy remain major social concerns, where religion is based on Old Testament hellfire and missionary zeal, where women remain third-class citizens in the minds of men, where The train tracks are overgrown and deserted, the taxis in disguise while the buses rush by in confusion and terror for pedestrians and passengers alike. Suicide bikers are everywhere weaving in and out of chaotic traffic racing to sell the backseat to anyone willing to risk their lives behind them as they try to maneuver past the bus/taxi and cars. All cars are scratched or dented in some way, so buying a new car in Kampala is probably not the best decision you can make. The roads have asphalt that is so soft in the heat that much of it simply melts away leaving huge holes in the road that tear many cars through violent ups and downs as they try to drive over or around the damage. In some places they have what in England we call sleeping policemen, a hump in the road to calm the traffic. In Uganda these humps are so tall and big that the bottom of any car with some loaded scratches along the top of the humps with a scream of metal against the asphalt. As a backseat passenger, it means a jump to the ceiling, bouncing off your head, and abruptly sitting back down. In addition to this, they have some parts that have several smaller humps of four together, so driving on them is the pleasure of being shaken to death and talking fun for a few moments.
The wildlife, after all this, Africa is hiding and I’m not sure where. There are many exotic birds around, but not much else. My landlady tells me that every evening and morning the monkeys climb to the roofs of the houses and chatter noisily. The dogs go crazy trying to catch them. However after three weeks I still haven’t seen them even once, despite getting up early with camera in hand to go look for them. My landlady swears they are there every day, but now I suspect the troop has gone on vacation to Kenya during the rainy season. There was also a green snake in the garden, but when I got there with my camera (seconds) was it gone? The locals tell me that if you want to see the animals now you have to go to the Wildlife Park and pay. I think I saw more wildlife in Shanghai than in Kampala. However, it is early and I need to be patient and wait.
My purpose for being here is, of course, to work. The Uganda Consulting Association invited me to speak at their conference and a local consulting company offered me a partnership to help them streamline and upgrade their operations. In addition to this, I will be teaching some psychology courses at the local universities. There is a large expat community in Kampala and of course they all speak English so unlike my time in China I can at least understand everyone except when they speak in the local dialects. I have taken a tour of the hospitals here (very poor quality, most built in the 1940s by the British then in the hands of the Ugandan government which went bankrupt) most of the mental patients are locked behind high chain link fences barbed to keep them from escaping. At one hospital, staff told me they were terrified to even go to the mental illness block, as patients are unsupervised and roam free. I saw this for myself and thought of Bedlam hospital in London 200 years ago, and that is here now! No Quaker humanism in Uganda to treat mental illness with compassion and moral healing. I was offered a position at such a hospital in Ishaka, about 5 hours from Kampala, but the owner had just been released from prison on charges of tax evasion and was so arrogant that I decided maybe it wasn’t best to get involved. The shame is that I would have relished the challenge of bringing the mental part of the hospital into the 21st century and saving the misery of all those patients who are trapped in an endless cycle of 1950s psychiatric thinking and methods. only one who understands psychiatry. However, you can’t help them if the boss is in and out of prison and he’s likely to disappear forever at any moment, throwing everything into disarray.
Soon I will have to decide whether to stay longer or move. I have a two month visa that is about to run out and I have to pay $850 to renew it for one year. If I do that, I will make a three year commitment to improving Ugandan counseling, training and psychology through local businesses and watch the penny drop.
I cannot recommend Uganda as a desirable place but when you come to a third world country you have to lower your expectations but not your desire to do better. The days of Idi Amin are behind us, and peace reigns in the country, but as in any African state, local crime is very high (my wallet was already stolen in a taxi/bus) and you have to be careful with the government of the mob here. I’ll see in a few weeks if I stay or move. Life is about travel, experiences and adventures. So live your life, don’t let life make you live.