Uganda’s very own Megabus

Yay! Today is the day we’ve been looking forward to since we realised just how little Mbarara has to offer, it is the day we’re travelling to Kampala for the week. As usual we’re a little at a loss as to how exactly today will work out. We know that the most reliable bus goes from outside the post office in Mbarara some time after 8am, but we don’t know how popular it is, when you’ll have to buy tickets, or what ‘reliable’ is supposed to mean in Africa. Therefore we leave the house around 7am, so that we can guarantee a seat on the bus at least.

We really needn’t have worried, turns out not many people go from Mbarara to Kampala via the postbus, and that it generally shows up anytime between 9.30 and 11am. So, much to the amusement of the post office employees and various bystanders, we have hours to kill. Nevermind though, Sacha has her book, and I am an epic procrastinator. I’m more than happy to kill a few hours sat in the sun people / traffic watching, after all, this place is a million miles from home and therefore everything is a new experience!

The postbus eventually shows up around 10.30 and from the outside it looks pretty okay. A bit like a coach really. Though it does look full. Thankfully Mbarara is a business town and so many people get off the bus here, surprisingly including Matthew. “Hey pretty girl” he hollers in his American way as he clambers out. He has definitely forgotten my name! Nevermind it’s always nice to see a familiar face and we agree to meet up when we’re all back in Mbarara.

Now it is time to board the bus. First impressions are that it is chaos, a photo of Musevini stares down at you from the front, I have too much stuff (nothing new there), and there’s nowhere fore Sacha and I to sit together. Also whilst there are seats available the Ugandan’s are not so keen on sharing their space with the flustered Westerners. Luckily I spot two other fair-skinned travellers, and immediately play the ‘we’re all white’ card to nab a spot next to them, whilst Sacha manages to bag the seat across the aisle just as the bus starts to pull away.

We make it about a mile down the road before the bus needs to make its first unscheduled stop. Apparently a tyre has blown out, or something to that effect, and needs immediate fixing. Cue everybody getting off the bus to take a look / stretch their legs apart from myself and Sacha. We have only just got out of the scorching sun after all. The tyre takes around half an hour to fix making the bus a solid hour and a half behind schedule. Not to worry though because the bus driver clearly has aspirations of race car driving and we are soon leaving all other forms of traffic in the dust.

A few hours in and I’m feeling pretty comfortable, sure the lady next to me is sweating on me a bit, but with the windows open there’s a decent breeze blowing through the bus and it’s comfortable enough

to catch up on the sleep we sacrificed this morning. I’m immediately reminded of the time myself Lauren, Bon, and Agg got the overnight Megabus from Paris to Amsterdam and what a truly horrendous life experience that was. The discomfort, the rudeness, the freezing air conditioning, the lack of legroom, the lack of sleep, the noise in general – no this journey is far better. I turn to Sacha to share my thoughts on the matter, to which she responds with the fact that she can see bugs living in the seat in front of her. Maybe the Megabus wasn’t so bad.

That being said what the Megabus doesn’t have is an on board drinks and snacks guy, or street vendors that bring barbecued goat on a stick right up to your window. Now I’m not saying the goat looked particularly appetising, but it smelled pretty damn good. Unfortunately, us only being halfway to Kampala at the time, I was not willing to risk the effect that it may have on my stomach. Our driver clearly doesn’t stop for anything and I’ve seen enough of the public toilets here to know that they are less than desirable.

We finally make it into Kampala six and a half hours after we left Mbarara, so only two and a half hours later than scheduled. We immediately set off in search of the ‘hotel city square’, which is only two minutes away.

We’re not left for long to dwell on the clear inadequacies of our hotel in terms of security, cleanliness, and mosquito nets before Mirjam, the supervisor for my bachelors thesis and the reason that Sacha and I are in Uganda, calls to summon us for a meeting. She insists that we hop in a cab straight away, and so Sacha and I collect up anything remotely valuable and head in the direction of Mirjam’s hotel during one of Kampala’s four rush hour periods.

Well that took forever. What should have been a 20-minute journey to the edge of town takes us just over an hour due to the complete and utter chaos of the Kampala roads. If there is a system it is certainly not evident to us as people weave in and out of potential traffic flows causing complete gridlock to the point at which most drivers on the road turn off their engines. It would have been quicker to walk! As we pull into the gates of Mirjam’s hotel we vow never to take unnecessary taxis again.

We find Mirjam in the hotel’s patisserie with two other people that we will be working with during our time in Uganda. Their names are Eyob and ___, and they are both Eritreans who have fled the regime and relocated to Kampala. We quickly introduce ourselves and settle in to hear more about what the work we’ll be carrying out here will entail. We firstly discuss the Eritrean project. Mirjam and Eyob had met with the Ugandan Ministry of Equal Opportunities earlier that day to discuss what could be done to give Eritrean citizens an equal place in society, with a particular focus on women. The Ministry asks Eyob and Mirjam to research what the top priorities for Eritrean women in Uganda are in terms of equal opportunities and produce a report. It will therefore be up to Sacha and I to conduct the interviews with Eritrean women in Kampala, and then return to Mbarara to do the analysis and recommendations. In terms of the project in Northern Uganda, we will be travelling to refugee camps in order to interview female victims of the LRA violence and community leaders in order to determine the interaction effect of cash-transfer programmes and psychosocial support on female empowerment. Sacha and I are really excited about both projects because they allow us the opportunity to talk to the people who have lived through conflicts we studied in our international relations classes at AUC.

With the work chat over it is time for dinner, something which Sacha and I are eternally grateful for as we haven’t eaten all day and are starving to the point of feeling ill. No jokes Sacha nearly keeled over in the car park – never a dull moment!