Lake Bunyoni and the solar eclipse!

Lake Bunyoni--definitely not beautiful

Eclipse

 After the Gorillas, we hitched a ride with some Finns to Lake Bunyoni. The drive down was beautiful, it had been dark on our drive up. Along the way a weird Italian old man who was hitch-hiking around Uganda to see the "people" joined us. He said Uganda had no culture, the people begged instead of working and the country wasn't beautiful. Right...

Goodbye Bwindi Forest

Diving down the mountain

We passed a rock-mine where men and women were hacking the rock apart with pick axes and small children were carrying huge buckets of rocks on their backs down the steep hill. I asked the Italian if this constituted not working hard. He didn't answer.

The lake at dusk

We arrived at the lake around dusk and got a motor-canoe to the island we were staying on. Friday, the manager met us and we had dinner; crayfish from the lake--amazing. There were a few others saying on the island, but it was very peaceful and quiet.

Dugouts--nonsensical vehicles

The next morning, my friend and I woke for sunrise to canoe in a dugout and find the lake otters. Friday tried to stop us, saying we should take a canoer because it was too difficult of Mzungus and we'd end up going around in cirlces; the Mzungo corkscrew. We assured him that we were lake faring people (my friend is from Ontario), and we knew our way around a canoe, as we clumsily climbed aboard. He informed us we were facing the wrong way.  Ahh, yes, well in American our canoes are slightly different, but no problem. He smiled and informed us we were holding the paddles backwards. What? But it scooped, how can the concave side go in front? "It is the way it is."

Two and a half hours later, we had made it around the (tiny) island and were exhausted. After much frustration and going around in circles, we determined that whoever is in the back should just steer, and leave the hard work to the person in front. Also out canoe liked to go left, all the time. In the end our course was many little circles in one big circle.  A few locals flew by us on the way. One guy tried to get in for a lift, we assured him there were better boats than ours. We tried to ask a fisherman where the otters were. He held out a bottle of water to us. No lake otters, not water. "Mzungus cannot drink the lake water!" F**k it.

 

We hung by the lake the rest of the day, and part of our group left for home. I wandered round the island and came across some interesting signs. I also found Friday, the manager picking mushrooms in the woods, so helped him (for 2 hours). A my mother knows, once I start doing something (cleaning, reading), I find it hard to stop, so after 2 hours we had harvested every single damned mushroom on the island. Friday told me these mushrooms only came once year, and we were lucky to have caught them. He also told me some legends about the lake, the most interesting of which was about the island next to us, which was used to maroon disgraced young women who had sex or got pregant before marriage. If they were lucky a poor fisherman too poor to afford a wife would come and take them. If not, they died. When I asked when this stopped, he said the 80s. 1880s? No, 1980s. 

Oh dear

I'm pretty sure this sign is backwards

My friend and I decided we would hike up to what we "told" was a fancy lodge for a drink and to catch the eclipse. A guy from the island canoed us to the shore in a flash. We were in the same dugout from the morning and we warned him about it's tendency to veer left. He laughed. He also helped us find a rout up the hill to the lodge. He said it would take us 2 hours. No way we said! We may not be able to canoe, but Mzugus are not that weak. Ok, so it took us an hour and a half. We were (as always) accompanied by kids. When we finally reached the top, we found our lodge was not the one we thought. In fact it was an abandoned old hotel staffed by a man in a cap and wellies waving at us from the entrance. Surely this was the Ugandan Shining.

The Shining

 The man's name was Amos, and he enthusiastically greeted us and then showed us around the hotel, every single room, which was being renovated. He said we were his first "customers." Well, since the rooms were larger than my entire house in Kampala, we said we couldn't afford it. He gave us a discount and so we promised we would come back and stay, so long as he let us bring 20 friends to put in one room. He was truly a lovely man, and one who proclaimed he knew a lot about whites, since he lived with whites in Kenya (the same small town my friend had lived in).

Amos

Once our extensive tour had finished and we had christened the visitor's log, Amos offered to show us the way to the lodge we were seeking, since he knew the owner and a (trespassing) shortcut. Along the way we discussed, of all things, family planning. Amos had only 3 children, because he spent so much time with white, and he regretted this. He said he didn't understand why white people who were healthy with so much money could not want as many children as possible. He told me that I, as a young, beautiful, intelligent woman, should "produce" as many children as I can. The way he said this was not as offensive as it sounds here and he never brought up God's plan as so many of the mothers had in Malawi. He seemed genuinely confused, and to be honest I had a hard time answering him. I said as a doctor I would have little time, I wanted to have enough time for my children. "Time is nothing--time we make up," he replied.

We parted with Amos and arrived at the fancy lodge, where we dropped Amos's to the bartender and the owner came out to greet us like long-lost family members. Drinks on the house. We were sure we had missed the eclipse, since I was meant to be at 4pm and it was 5. Oh well, the place to be was Gulu in the North of the country anyway, we were in the farthest southwest part right by Rwanda. Most of my friends were in Gulu (along with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie).

A glimpse of one of the volcanic peaks

Then, it started to get dark. It was 5:30pm, but it was definitely getting dark. I looked a the sun, which fortunately was behind the clouds, and there it was! Not total, but still dramatic.

It really got very dark

Well, nothing like a surprise (because you don't research anything) solar eclipse! Satisfied we headed back (in the rain) to our island, where Friday had saved some of mushroom soup for me.  The next morning, my friend went on to Rwanda and I bussed back to Kampala. Along the way I was offered some crickets by my neighbor-- they actually taste better roasted than boiled. At one point my neighbor was looking on the ground, I asked if she could help and she said "I lost me pen." I looked around and picked up a pen for her. "No, my hen." Ohh...10 seats back her hen was passed up. Damn it I hate that smell. But I arrived in one piece in Kampala.