Leaving Uganda

Vincent Obama was the taxi driver taking us on our final drive out of Uganda to the border with Rwanda – 20 minutes south of the town of Kabale. A large, jovial man, Vincent shook when he laughed. And when Vincent shook, the whole car shook. “England! Ah, I love England. I think England and America are the most, the most peaceful places in the world.” We mentioned the mass shootings in the US. “Yes, I don’t understand why people kill. I can’t understand it. I love life. Life is the most important thing in this world.”

“Where in Uganda did you come from?” He asked inquisitively. We told him we had just been on Lake Bunyoni, relaxing. “I love Lake Bunyonu, it’s so nice there,” he added. We told him that we had eaten lots of tilapia – the most popular fish in Uganda – and he was delighted. “I love tilapia. It’s my favourite. You can eat it fried, or boiled with vegetables. It’s so good.” We also ate crayfish. “I love crayfish. That’s my other favourite.” Safe to say Vincent Obama was excitable and his size (large), combined with his enthusiasm for tilapia and crayfish (equally large) shows that he is a big fan of food.

He went on to play us some great Congolese folk music, which was far better than the trashy Ugandan pop music we’d been used to listening to throughout most of our time here, before telling us to ‘sit back and relax’. “You guys chill. I will get you to the border like a proper driver. Safe. You guys relax and we’ll get there,” Vincent Obama was pleased with his line of work.

As soon as we pulled up at the border a man came running over with a huge wad of money in his hands. “You want to change your money?” he asked, as soon as we opened the car door. Luckily for him, we did, and five minutes later we were walking to the Ugandan Customs office having swapped our remaining Ugandan Shillings for Rwandan Francs. Being handed a new currency, one I’ve never had before, is always exciting. As you fold the different coloured denominations away in your wallet for the first time it is easy to look forward to the prospect of spending this money in a brand new nation.

We walked into the Ugandan Customs office on the north side of the border, filled in our deportation documents and then made our way across the dusty no man’s land that sits between the two countries. We strolled past construction sites, erecting large buildings whose purposes had yet to be made clear. Then, after a couple of hundred metres that saw us pass in between two long lines of lorries facing opposite directions, parked up waiting to cross form one country to the other, we were at the Rwandese customs office.

We filled in the form, handed over our passports and then I had to take some paper to a nearby bank in order to pay for the visas. I then had to take the payment receipts to the customs office in order to get the visa stamped. This was a process clearly designed to stop corruption at the border. Whilst I was sorting out our visas a Rwandese man approached Claire and offered us a seat on his bus heading to Kigali, our desired destination. He was literally the quietest man I have ever spoken to in my life. His timid, almost silent voice, was so hard to hear that we had to check the details a few times. But, before we knew it, we were on a bus headed to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital and the next leg of our trip. We already noticed a difference from Uganda. This bus left before it was full. Before it was full. Not only was it not overfull, but it wasn’t even regular full!

Uganda was behind us. The Pearl of Africa was our first destination and we were sad to say goodbye. We had seen lions roaming the mid-morning savannah, witnessed elephants drinking from the Nile, spent a month playing with young orphaned children, got charged by a huge mountain gorilla in the thick rainforest and relaxed on the edge of one of the deepest lakes in the world. We met some fantastic people including Doreen, Charles, Ali, Yawumah, Billie, Joseph, Andrew, David, Vincent Obama, Kendra, Gerald, Dor, Louise, Mime, Moses, James and Maria, to Amy, Leah, Gabriel, Chrissy and Doreun. Uganda was the friendliest place I have ever been and the perfect introduction to our trip. Whilst we are sad to leave it behind, we are excited about seeing what Rwanda and then Tanzania has to offer us in the not-so-distant future…