Blue Eyed Birder: Uganda - the people along the way

When I return from these bigger, further flung adventures I always take a moment to reflect on the country I have visited. As we travel around I try and take candid pictures of the human world around me – usually only from the bus but they aim to capture the real everyday life that we experienced as we passed through.

Uganda was different. The people were loud and vibrant and the towns bustling, noisy with trucks, mopeds and the countless Boda-boda boys on their well looked after taxi bikes and everything is coloured by the red dust that seems to get everywhere but the disparity between those living in the rural areas and those even in the smaller towns was an eyeopener.

I have never been anywhere where I have seen people quite literally living hand to mouth; where clothes were more hole than fabric, where shoes were a luxury. Different areas had different local industries whether it was huge white sacks of charcoal, more bunches of bananas than you can possibly imagine, pineapple, gourd, tomato and sweet potato sellers, pot weavers and the brick makers spending their days slaving in the mud to feed their ovens.

And where you found one pineapple seller they would be along side countless others on both sides of the road for miles and miles and the same went for any product we saw. How anyone choses who to stop at I do not know?

We passed several of the huge roving banana markets where everyone comes to sell their crop – be it one bunch of a hundred before they head off, depending on the banana type, to the cities or distilleries to make the local gin.

The sugar cane fields obviously employ a huge number of people and it was the one time that the workers that we saw did not look happy as they headed off into the fields, jammed in the back of open backed truck, machetes in hand.

Mobile hawkers sell their chosen products in a variety of ways with bicycles customised to hold huge racks covered pots and pans, phone chargers, flip flops and such like while other simply carry them around attached to their backs, heads and arms. In towns their is a battle between the food vendors to wave sticks of miscellaneous meat on sticks or corn cobs at the windows of any vehicle that vaguely lingers.

I suspect that the largely beige Land Cruisers used by nearly every tour company out here are recognised by the children and we were joyously waved at, danced at and ‘helloed’ where ever we went. There was no expectation of handouts or gifts – they just wanted us to respond as enthusiastically! Each school had a uniform and all were turned out immaculately as they walked to and from school albeit sometimes without shoes.

I am sure I will get the wording wrong here but I will have a go. I have and never will be wealthy. I have never had proper savings (I worked for the RSPB, remember) but for the first time ever I felt weighed down with the simple personal wealth around my neck, on my back and my feet – you do the maths. I did not feel ashamed by it – I live in a different culture and worked for my acquisitions– but I was acutely aware that I was at times surrounded by people who quite literally had next to nothing and while there I was powerless to do anything about it as we drove by, waving and smiling as we went.

It was not just I that felt this way and we had a good chat with Paul one evening and asked about his childhood. It mirrored that of many of the villages we came through. He was the first person in his village to go to University and subsequently escape. We asked if there was anything we could do? Amazingly Paul has set up a charity to help families in the area in which he grew up and those around Bwindi so if you would like to donate then please have a look at Birds of a Feather

One thing that we regretted was not bringing out useful items to donate. Paul had asked that we did not hand out gifts to random children but that is better if gifts of pencils, books, paper, old glasses and clothes get given to your guide to take into a local school or such like. We all had spare room in our cases and every little helps. Some of the party flew with Emirates through Dubai and had over 60kg of available luggage if they wanted it. They said that they would have filled an old suitcase with unwanted clothes (adults need clothes too!) and such like and simply left it with Paul to disseminate. I am sure any other tour guide would be happy to do likewise. I will also consider taking out any unwanted optics next time too which could be given to the numerous local helpers that we had,

It always amazes me how quick your short time in a new country goes and Uganda was no exception. I hope this Muzungu will get the chance to visit again before too long.

The pictures are not grouped in any way but sort of follow our journey...