Uganda- Why?
9/11/2019. A fierce Ankole roadblock outside of Mburo.
The most prominent question I’ve received since returning is one I’ve wrestled with myself for many long nights.
Why? Why Uganda? Why specifically Uganda?
Here is my drunken journal from a plane ride on the way home. I’m still deep in the battle with that question at the time of writing this. Three months later I’m more comfortable with the actual answer. But here are my shell-shocked thoughts.
09/15/19
I'm exhausted. Compounding hangovers, days of travel and a final round of bullshit on the way out have built a very legitimate spire of fatigue off of a very solid foundation of it dug deep into my bones through the last 6 weeks. So I'm here- too tired, too buzzed and too deep in thought to sleep. Not far enough to my right is a woman of sizeable girth, and a postcard from her time in Dubai, a little lower than a different version of the same safety briefing I’ve never looked at. To my left, 34,633 feet below, is a beautiful Arctic world of melted ice, with each drop beginning a dance it'll dance for decades. Of ice and of water and of everything that belies the state in the middle. There must be a fine line that the water either hates or loves between its two states. A life lived on edge between stability and instability. Tense and Beautiful. Who will I be tonight?
I'm only four beers in today but the effect is very much noticeable. It's not a smooth rounding of the edges but more as if the radio dial has been knocked out of tune. My antenna is a little crooked all the way up here and the static is filling into my ears and drowning out the drowning of the engines. There's a lot to sift through there now, and though I fear this road of ramblings is a dangerous one, it's one I'm bound to begin exploring. I've spent all my time exploring roads uneasily as of late and though I'm no expert, I'm beginning to find it amusing.
A Heineken for the road please.
I've grown up a relatively sheltered life. My sister called it Wonderbread and the image has a nice, simple, bleached connotation to it that matches the life we knew. We grew up together in the suburbs of San Diego and went to good schools and received educations similar to most middle class American white children. We learned of Columbus and Washington, the Boston Tea Party, the Revolution, Lincoln and the Civil War. We later learned of the Great Wars, the Cold War, and NATO. My education in High School even extended to the Arab-Israeli crisis, Guevara and Mao but throughout this entire 14 year process there was a large, overarching dismissal of the most fertile and most perilous continent of all lying quietly underneath. But I never wondered...What lie there?
At a young age we were exposed to Africa. But very minimally, and the pictures that were shown were small glimpses of it's perilous extremes. I watched early UNICEF and Sarah McLaughlin commercials on Africans dying of AIDS, war and famine. We saw small black children with puffy stomachs and rib cages sick and coughing and the images we watched on the couch fell in line with the ones we were taught on Sunday of a place that may or may not exist called hell. And these images and concepts would be put far in the dark reaches of the mental closet to gather dust and grow solid. They'd later be revisited, but only briefly. We're shown Hotel Rwanda and see the gruesome images that define the ‘Africans are bloodthirsty savages’ mentality found common in the West. We learn briefly of racism in the Apartheid and many finally have the realization that white people can exist in Africa too. And that is all. That is an American, quality education on Africa. And this lack of understanding of a part of the world so large and so fertile does nothing other than create this massive, continental black box of death, war, plague and famine. You don't go. You don't ask questions and the result is most Americans, myself included, couldn't name more than a handful of countries in Africa or tell you anything about their culture.
Months ago I peeked into the box. I had yet another spontaneous idea and ended up alone on a ferry with my bicycle and camera and crossed the straits of Gibraltar into Morocco. As the boat pushed through the storm and the Rif mountains broke the clouds I was flooded with emotions. Those mountains over there, the ones I will soon cross, are mountains of Africa. The air is now African air and the people here are from the land of pain and suffering.
But the air smelled no different and the people were praying to Mecca. They were kind and I was so pleasantly let through their gates. Where is this hell you speak of?
I had an incredible journey through Morocco. I found a healthy economy, freedom, and the insides of homes the locals invited me into filled with feasts and family. I met doctors, lawyers, nomads and farmers and began to understand how this land may not be just simply defined by a black box and racist cliches. I had found salvation.
After I returned I began to read and talk about the land that I once didn't think existed. The gravity of having been to Africa slowly wore off and in its wake left the realization that I'd not only just scratched the surface, I was scratching entirely at the wrong one. Talk to any African and they all agree- North of the Sahara is not real Africa. The landscape is different. The people are different. The culture is absolutely nothing alike what lies below and the Africa I thought I saw was in fact just a small exception.
That deep rooted American ignorance began to perpetuate and make itself aware. And in its realization I begged for more. I'm so dangerously in love with understanding by adventure, and knew I had to return and head south of the Sahara to peek into that black box. I found it at my feet in Morocco and the ideas of opening it littered my dreams long after I returned home. I dreamt of the impossibilities I knew where possible in Africa. I dreamt of its dirt on my face and people in my arms.
6 weeks off University this summer meant I had time to return to this international education I'm beginning to love much more than the one confined to a classroom. But 6 weeks isn't enough to do much. So I zoomed in, and instead of crossing country borders like I’ve done before on a bike I decided to stay within one. The one place unanimously agreed upon as beautiful, safe and interesting by those that know. So I fixed my bike, packed my tent, bought a bigger memory card and found myself hugely nervous to step into my final connecting flight to Entebbe. I was the only white person on that plane and as I came out of a nap somewhere over Sudan the energy in the air shook me upright. Blue lights reflected off the black skin of the people all standing and talking loudly with one another huddled over my shoulders. I shrank into my corner unknowing of where I was and what I was settling into. And this sentiment only grew as I loaded my bike into a tired old taxi and drove through crowded night streets that bustled with a chaotic and dark energy I hadn't known. I stayed with a local man that night and showered out of a Jerry can. Motorcycles buzzed through the alleys. Mosquitoes picked at my face. 6 hours of confusion and disbelief in Uganda, 6 weeks and 2,300 miles to go.
I had a hell of a journey ahead.
Taken 8/17/19. A boy on a bicycle deep in Karamoja
It’s been three months since I’ve returned and I’ve had the time to sit with my reckoning. I’ve wrestled with the truth and at times it’s pummeled me. Why did I really go to Uganda? Why leave my nice couch and best friends in LA?
“The truth shall set you free”
EGO
In a world of congratulations and participation medals so glorious and common as they are in West LA true satisfaction rarely seems warranted. Little actual difficulty is around anymore and I’m finding myself bored around here. And now after chasing horizons further ones must be found so they can be chased too. That’s almost become a rhythm I’m finding now. Some sort of poetic dance of life and death and I’m somewhere in the middle of it all sweating and swearing. Writing a bit during the slow parts and taking photos in the chaos.
So the idea of extending the Trans-Uganda became less of a measuring stick and more a monumental wall I could flog myself against. Surely it wasn’t possible…But I knew I wasn’t going to be able to finish it. I just wanted to see where my limit still lied. So I planned and set up a safety net for when I failed. I had a series of contacts around the country and busses are everywhere in Uganda to bring quitting bikepackers so frequent as they aren’t back to the airport. I bought a ticket. I left to fail and check my ego.
I left to fail and check my ego
08/25/19. Battered outside of Fort Portal // Ego checking