Travelogue

The Karamojong are a group of Nilotic herders, similar in some ways to the Maasai. Their fearsome reputation among other Ugandans comes from their warlike culture and prowess with weapons. Like in other warrior cultures, the boys are raised in a spartan manner and are said to “enjoy living a tough life”. 

They still occasionally raid other villages, to steal cattle or even their women. Until the disarmament program was completed a few years ago, the Karamojong were armed to the teeth with an overflow of weapons from the war in the Sudan, and those raids were usually quite bloody.

The Karamojong have managed to maintain their traditional way of life, and while they may partake in some aspects of modern life (such as schooling), they seem to take genuine pride in their culture and to prefer life in their villages. Their witch-doctors ride hyenas to communicate with spirits in order to cure illnesses, repel bad luck and call the rain.Every evening, the men will gather around a campfire with the Elders to drink sorghum-beer and discuss village matters.

A Council of Elders decides all matters in the village and they keep a clear division of labour between men and women. Men look after the cattle and build the infrastructure of the bandas. Women pound grains, cook, look after the children and thatch the bandas. Most men take several wives, often between two and six.

We visit the village of one of our camp’s staff, Augustine – a settlement of about 1,700 people called Lorukul.  On that day, their king, Lothiang Ignatio, has just returned from the hospital where he was being treated and we have the opportunity to pay our respects to him.

During our time in Mount Elgon, we go on hikes around the thick forested mountains, discovering the true meaning of “rain forest”. The diluvian rain doesn’t ever seem to relent, alternating between mere tropical downpours and hailstorms.

During our slow, lumbering progress up and down muddy, slippery slopes in the gushing rain, we get mildly disheartened by the school children darting past us, barefoot in their school uniforms. 

As the heavens open up and we rush to put on our Goretex jackets, we feel like clumsy astronauts stepping for the first time onto another planet populated by lithe, sprightly spirits.

We’re back in the highlands, at Mount Elgon, a chain of extinct volcanoes in the east of Uganda, on the Kenyan border. Like elsewhere in Africa, we find the more fertile highland regions with a more temperate climate heavily populated. Every inch of the mountains, with the exception of the national park, is carved into a jigsaw of small plots whose owners manage to grow cassava, maize, bananas, coffee and keep a few animals.

Each of Kampala’s hills seems to have been adopted by a different faith. Namirembe is home to the Anglican cathedral. Rubaga to the Catholic cathedral. Old Kampala hill, to the Gadaffi mosque.

Kampala, like Rome, is built over seven hills. A pleasant city where the few high rise buildings mix with stately old bungalows and shanties, it feels a bit like a backwater compared with the larger capitals of its neighbors. It reminds us a bit of another garden city, Singapore, or of the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur. Green, not very dense, reasonably clean and organized. Even the perfectly predictable afternoon showers are reminiscent of South East Asia.

The old underground torture chambers of the Idi Amin era, where over 8,000 people were tortured and killed, are on the grounds of the Kabaka’s palace, in a pastoral setting which belies the horrors it witnessed.

Our arrival in Uganda is rather low key. For all its infamous reputation from the Idi Amin days and the 1976 Israeli raid, Entebbe is a genteel, rather sleepy town on the shores of Lake Victoria. Its long driveways and lush gardens hide large colonial era bungalows. Only the wreckage of the aeroplane partially destroyed during the 1976 raid, still lying near the airport, reminds us of Uganda’s troubled past.

The two hour drive to Kampala, the capital, reveals a somewhat less hectic, greener, more organized city than we have been used to in other large African cities.