The Long Road to Mbarara

Anyone who has ever travelled in or around Africa will know the phrase ‘T.I.A’ or ‘This is Africa’ which is how most foreigners fondly shrug of the slow pace of the African lifestyle, alongside the many oddities it is generally composed of. It also characterises the attitude we took to our journey down to Mbarara from Entebbe the morning after our arrival to Uganda. When the university driver was late, we shrugged our shoulders, cited ‘T.I.A’, and opened our books in the porch of the J.Residence Motel. When the driver left us in the car at the roadside, keys still in the ignition, we shrugged ‘T.I.A’ and watched him peruse multiple fruit and vegetable markets instead of dwelling on the risk of kidnap. When we stopped for lunch at a questionable-looking roadside restaurant, we shrugged ‘T.I.A’, and cautiously filled our hungry stomachs with local Ugandan foods (which were delicious by the way). However, there is a more beautiful side to the phrase ‘This is Africa’ which is why I believe foreigners do cite it with a fondness rather than an irritation, and that is because Africa is enchanting. Throughout our long journey neither Sacha nor I wanted to fall back to sleep through fear of missing out on some sights of Uganda’s amazing landscape. We wanted to see everything, from cities to the more rural areas and so, once we realised how long our driver would take to choose his produce and how often he was planning on stopping, we soon started to abandon our belongings and hop out with him to get another taste of this African country.

Uganda has a very young population, which means that its children are its future, and it's clear to see how serious Uganda takes this. Even the most rural of villages had at least one primary school and one secondary school so on our 6 hour journey to Mbarara we passed hundreds. Furthermore it seems that the children love it. Rather than being a bore education is fun and the children have huge aspirations. For example one eleven year old we spoke to told us of his dreams to study a business degree and then move on to found his own marketing company. Whilst this was much to the despair of his own mother, it was amazing to hear such bold career plans from such a young person. You would never guess that Uganda only found peace three years ago after 114 years of conflict. This was something that we discussed with our driver when we stopped for lunch, as we had seen hundreds of campaign posters during the drive for the upcoming elections. Elections are a common source of conflict in the developing world, so we wondered if he thought this would pose a threat to their

fairly newfound peace. However he seemed rather unconcerned, saying that, although current leader Museveni’s popularity may not be what it used to be, most Ugandan’s credit him with the creation of the peace, leaving little room for a credible opposition.

Oh and we also passed the equator, which was pretty cool.