Ssese Islands Election Escape…

Last week, presidential election fever grabbed the nation, and scared the pants off the mzungus in Kampala. To limit worry for the Child’s I organisation, and to be safe, the volunteers working at Malaika Babies Home departed for the Ssese Islands. Some 80 odd islands, some dense in jungle, some at only 2km wide, all floating about at the northern end of Lake Victoria. We left the city early on Thurs morning headed for the port in Entebbe. The day before elections, we were expecting there to be some kind of trouble. There was none, and we arrived at the Nakiwogo ferry port in a good 3 hours early. Got to put into practise my African ‘waiting’, which is always nice.

Buggala Island

Buggala beach

The ferry crossing to the main Island – Buggala – was packed, people going back to the Islands where they were registered to vote, a group of undesirable drunken mzungu youth from somewhere in north America, and a smattering of other European faces, all escaping the mainland and the fear of violence. 3.5 hours later (this felt like longer after some time being squished in a corner and sat on a wooden slat bench) we arrived at Lutoboka port on the Buggala island. A walk off the boat and a five minute stroll into town (a few wooden huts) and we were in a huge garden, noisy with bird song, and with cottages arranged neatly in the shade of the trees in the garden. Panorama Cottages, family owned, and run by the most pleasant man I’ve come across in a very long time. Breakfast at whatever time we wanted it. Tea and cake at whatever time of night we desired. Hot water for showers delivered to the door. Arnold: you’re a star.

The port we came into lay on the main beach area, a collection of 6 or 7 small beaches, separated by greenery creeping from the forest on to the beach. Very quiet, very relaxed. There really wasn’t much to do there, and that was fine with us. After the heat, dust and election stress in Kampala, it was an absolute relief to be somewhere we could just breathe. And this we did for three nights, practising our waiting, especially at meal times. As the resorts were so quiet, what would be the point in having kitchen staff?! But with nowhere to rush off to, we managed okay.

We listened to the radio carefully whilst away. Election day came and went. The results came in – a Museveni (rigged) landslide – and went, seemingly peacefully. The ‘man with the hat’ had triumphed again. 25 years in the game, though not the game of free and fair elections. I began to feel a little guilty that we had left colleagues working hard on the mainland, looking after 25 abandoned children. The election trouble we were escaping didn’t seem to have materialised. We cut our Buggala trip short, and headed for our second island – Banda. This involved chartering a motorised fishing boat at considerable cost (£30 – more than national express!) to take me and my colleague an hour across the lake in the blazing sun.

Banda Island

Banda Island back beach

An eccentric Kenyan mzungu – Dom, ex gold and diamond miner, sociable heavy smoker and drinker, engineer extraordinaire,

decides to buy an entire island and have people come to stay. He builds stone cottages on the beach for his guests, a huge stone donut in the woods with a 360° view, with just a throne in the middle that acts as the w/c. For himself, Dom builds a stone castle with huge windows and doors, making for lake views all around. On the beach lies a boat he built, that used to be the biggest floating vessel on the lake. It’s now shipwrecked on the sand, home to a range of creepers and crawlers, and is a better ornament than a garden gnome. A huge dining table and bench the length of a badminton court, made from single pieces of wood. A pack of dogs keeping guard and guests company, abandoned on the mainland, ferried over to him for recuperation and a subsequent life of island foraging and adventure.

the Dutchman and the Tanzanian

The resort was quiet. There was king Dom, me and my workmate Josie, two teenage American Woofers that cleared land for pineapple for 2 hours out of the day and relaxed for the rest, a huge Dutchman named Bert who was prone to skinny dipping, a Tanzanian miner who had worked with Dom in the past, a pleasant but very methodical German guy who helped run the place and who suffered an horrendous attack from safari (meat eating) ants, and a 70 year old Canadian who looked at least 20 years younger, often condescending without malice, but impressive enough to still be jaunting through black Africa on his own. An odd bunch, oddly assembled on a tiny rock.

We ate three very large meals a day, enough for seconds and sometimes thirds – pasta, stew, salads, baked taters – and used as few calories as is probably possible, whilst still breathing. Of course after eating came dozing, then a bit of reading. Then a tea, or a beer – warm, as there was no electricity, followed by a bit of looking out at the horizon. In the evenings we would light a beach fire, and watch millions of flying bugs commit genocide. The dogs literally lapped up the fallout.  The stars were incredible, being on the Equator you can see just about everything going. A nightcap of homebrewed banana schnapps (so strong it is used as an antiseptic in cuts) and off to bed.

The feasting table

Huge storms raged in the night, the antithesis of the roasting days. Claps of thunder loud enough to make me jump, wind strong enough to blow open doors and knock down trees. I could see the lake from my bed, and during a storm one morning around 4.30am I watched the sky light up over the water and the trees bending, praying our glass doors would hold out. They did, and through them at about 6.30am, I watched the red sun rising slowly for a new day. A day as if that crazy night hadn’t happened.

Seasick sailors

Leaving Banda was hard for a few reasons: it meant going back to the real world, the red dust of the city and mosquitoes. The other was that it involved a 2.5 hour trip in a fishing boat that slapped and chopped its way over the lake towards Kasenyi port on the mainland. Quite a few of us made the trip, each wearing lifejackets. I closed my eyes and thought about meaty issues – life, relationships, disappointments, worries – things that I’d have to concentrate thinking on, anything to not think about the fact I could no longer tell which way was up or down. When the shoreline came into view, it was one of the happier moments of my life so far. But it wasn’t exactly plain sailing from there…

It took effort and four men to pull the large boat into harbour at Kasenyi, a horrid and rancid smelling fishing village, full of foul people. Before the boat had even been pulled in, two awful porters jumped onto the boat. They were meant to carry us and our luggage to the shore, which was quite some way away.

One of Dom's projects...

They manhandled our bags off the boat, but didn’t take them to the shore first as they were meant to to keep them dry. Instead they kept them on their backs as the waves came in up to their chests and insisted they carry us at the same time. Feeling too ill to argue, I dropped from the boat’s edge into the porters arms, and he carried me in a cradle like fashion , through the shit of the water to the shore, soaking me as much as my bag. The porter’s fee is 500ugx (15p) per piece, meaning the total was 1000ugx, though they tried hard to add mzungu tax and argued for 5000ugx. We bickered, the porter not wanting to return my bag until the mzungu tax was paid. I grabbed it from him and presented a 1000ugx note. It was snatched out of my hand without ceremony, and that was the end of that. Josie and I wearily made our way off the beach to a soda stall. We sat and drank Stoney’s ginger ale for some time, waiting for the strength to return to our legs and for the horizon line to settle into its usual place. We then got into a half full standing matatu bound for Kampala, stinking out the other passengers who had no doubt where the fish stench was coming from. Sighs of relief all round once the matatu was finally full and we pulled away, fresh air spilling into the windows, swishing out our odour.

Back to the heat and dust of the city, seemingly hotter and drier than before we left. Traffic at a standstill, sweat rolling into the eyes. Still a heavy army and gun-toting riot police presence post election, loitering on every main street. Hoping the rain will come to cool us all off, and soon.