Backstory: About Fifteen years ago, my elementary school principal (and my Grandmother’s friend) left Kentucky for the bush. The bush in Uganda. She’s been here ever since.
As soon as I mentioned our arrival to Uganda to my Momma, she was eager for me to stop in on the Sisters living in Buseesa, Uganda to say hello. She also wanted me to stop in on an orphanage she volunteered at several years ago and check out the equator. All of this would be easier (and more expensive and possibly more dangerous) had we our own car. However, we have been relying on public transportation, getting from Kampala to Buseesa, where the Sisters have set up and currently run two boarding schools was a challenge in itself.
I’ll spare you the waiting game we played in the matatu (shared taxi-bus) parking lot for three hours for ours to fill up. I’ll also spare you the near death experiences we had sitting in the front seat of our matatu for the four hours it took to get from Kampala to Buseesa. Instead, this post’s video and pictures are from the Sunday we spent getting tours of the schools and hanging out with the students on their day off. Some students took turns taking pictures with my camera: (Not bad, right?)
Now I know why it’s advised NOT to travel in Uganda after dark. There are no lights. The roads are horrendous. There are no traffic rules in Uganda. It’s worse than India. People are walking on the side of the road with carts of vegetables, grass balanced on their heads, herds of goats… How something or someone didn’t die in the hour we were on the road after dark is absolutely beyond me.
We didn’t arrive to the schools until well after dark. Two younger Ugandan Sisters met us at the dirt road junction we were told was Buseesa and walked us back the mile (mile and a half?) road to meet the other Sisters who were still awake. It’s the strangest and one of the most lovely feeling walking into a convent in the middle of the bush in Uganda to receive hugs from one of the math teachers from my high-school (Sr. Anita Marie) and then my old elementary school principal (Sr. Janet). Seeing familiar faces during our travels is always a bit special, but seeing Sr. Janet and having memories of my grandmother flood over me felt even more so.
“Do you remember your dear Grandmother?” Sr. Janet asked me over the late dinner that they had prepared for us.
“Of course, I was going to ask you if you could tell me any stories I might not know about!” I replied.
“She used to come to mass in the convent chapel every morning! Five in the morning, she would be there!” she recalled.
“I know! She made me go to one of those masses with her one morning! I was bad and my Mom sent me to stay with her and I had to get up and go to church with her that early!” FYI: That was the. worst. If my daughter or son is ever bad… so help me, their Grandmother (Yo, Momma, that’s you) better be going to mass on a daily basis just so they can learn their lesson.
I had no idea their schools were so big. I brought three bags of candy thinking it would be enough for maybe 100 students. Wrong. Including the nursery students (who don’t board) there are nearly 600 students. 500 between the primary and secondary schools. Adorable younger children and polite girls ran around enjoying their weekend. Once our cameras were out, the younger ones got super excited and we would take turns taking pictures until Andrew or myself thought of a good excuse to put the cameras away for a little while. One of the Sisters pulled us aside and told us to be extra careful with our belongings and not to give any money to the students if they asked us for it. This surprised me, and I’m happy to report that by the end of our visit, absolutely NONE of the students asked for money or said anything that made for an awkward moment.
Primary students standing at the door to their dorm (which was immaculate I feel I should mention):
Only girls are admitted to the secondary school. I’ve noticed the short hair on ALL students since we’ve arrived in Uganda. Girl or boy, if you’re a student- you hair is kept super short. I love it. The girls are stunning without overly coiffed hair taking away from their natural beauty. We talked about it and I told them how much I liked it. They disagreed and all admitted to not being able to wait to get their hair plaited. They did NOT approve when I told them how much I want to shave part of my head a la Anya from Project Runway (Season 9).
Where we slept:
What I spent:
Leave a Comment
Let us know your thoughts on this post but remember to place nicely folks!
8 Comments
Got something to say? Feel free, I want to hear from you!
Yay! I am so glad you got to meet up with Sr. Anita Marie! God bless her for getting me through PreCal!
Me too! It was so fun to see a few familiar faces
I find it offensive when you refer to Uganda as the “bush”. Uganda is a beautiful country with traffic rules and not just a bush as you suggest. It’s misleading and pure arrogance on your part to write negativity about this beautiful country to appease an ignorant audience in the USA. I have lived in the US for over 20 years and witnessed untold poverty and suffering in that part of the world and most people are mum about that. Kentucky is the third poorest state in the US with scores of poor people living in it’s cities and countryside and I can attest to that because I have been to Kentucky. I will however not indulge in putting down your state but rather find ways to help. Oh the vanity of mankind.
You are right, Uganda IS a beautiful country, but it is also a developing one, with rural and undeveloped land in certain parts of it. The school where we were visiting was in a very rural area and those who worked there called it the bush. I’m not calling Uganda as a whole “the bush” I’m calling the area we went specifically. When we talked about this area with Ugandans, they also referred to it as “the bush” furthermore, it’s not even a derogatory term. I don’t think describing it as the bush is misleading at all. Nor do I think that I am displaying arrogance by using the term to describe an area with dirt roads, a lack of electricity, and water only when there is enough in the tanks that collect rain run-off from the roof. Just because I describe a country in Africa for what it is does not mean that I think my own country- and state- is any better. If I was in a part of my state that was in the bush, I would say so. My travel partner will- and does often- put my state down, and believe me, I can take it. I can take it because I know blanket statements don’t cover an entire state- or country. I’m not being mum about what is going on in my own country, but this is a blog about my travel experiences outside of The United States. While I thank you for pointing out that my state is the third poorest in the US, it’s completely irrelevant to this blog, being as it is a travel blog and I’m not traveling to Kentucky. Likewise, I’ll choose not to indulge in accusations of arrogance by focusing on the fact that you made broad assumptions about me and this blog based on your own misunderstanding of a commonly-used phrase, both locally and throughout the English-speaking world.
Africa and Uganda in particular has been the brunt of negativity, bad press and publicity thanks to “travelers” who focus on the bad and see nothing good about the country or continent, hence the phobia created in the minds of people in other countries about the continent.
Honestly, can you tell me how many times you have read blogs or articles about the poverty and lack in America or Europe from travelers to these continents? This doesn’t mean that these continents are without the burden of large masses of poor people and broken down social systems. So my phrase “the vanity of mankind” isn’t a misunderstanding but a reflection of how Africa or Uganda have been viewed as places that offer nothing but poverty and suffering by folks in other countries, who get most of their information off the internet from skewed blogs like yours.
This has unfortunately led to stereotyping about the African people both home and abroad, and being from the States you should at least have an inkling on how that has worked against your minority groups. Always look for the positive in a people or place.
It’s unfortunate you find my blog to be skewed and that you seem to go out of your way to focus on what you (not I) deem to be negative characterizations of my time in Africa. It’s interesting that you suggest I try harder to look for the positive in a people or a place, when clearly you seem intent on finding negativity where there is none when reading about my adventures in new countries and impressions of these different cultures.
Your blog clearly misrepresents the true beauty of Uganda, just because you travelled to an undeveloped part of the country doesn’t mean like you said make blanket statements such as ” there are no lights and the roads are horrendous and there are goats and chicken everywhere”. Surely if a potential traveler or tourist was interested in travelling to the country, wouldn’t you agree that they would be turned off from coming to the country if they read your blog.
You haven’t travelled to all parts of Uganda, and if you only travelled to a small section of the country then why didn’t you say so in your “blanket statements”. Giving a wrong impression about Uganda like I mentioned earlier deters would be tourists, sightseers, investors or just plain travelers to this great country. In other words your blog in some ways is enjoyable to read but in other ways does more harm than good in terms of Uganda’s Image abroad. Uganda is rightly called the Pearl of Africa for a reason and it would be a good idea to find out what that reason is.
What an odd string of comments. First of all, after reading your blog post, my impression of Uganda was certainly not a negative one. Your experience traveling to the school in the rural area of the country, and interacting with the students, teachers, and sisters at the school seemed overwhelmingly positive. If anything, it made me want to travel to Uganda and see it for myself, not avoid it. Just saying that, for example, an area has bad roads is not painting a negative picture, it’s being honest about what you see. the job of a travel blogger is not to try to make each place seem as nice as possible, it’s to be honest about what you see, for better or worse. I would never read a blog that only said nice things about each place, because it would be clear that they were not telling the truth. No place is perfect, they all have their own set of problems. I’m curious why the commenter brought up the USA and Kentucky, because they have nothing to do with this blog. It’s about travel outside of the states. You’ve never (as far as I can remember) said here that either are perfect places, because 1) I have a feeling you’re well aware that they’re not and 2) it has absolutely nothing to do with this blog.
I hate to make assumptions about other people without ever having met them, but just from reading this person’s comments, it seems that they are one of those insecure ultra-nationalists who cannot stand anyone saying anything even remotely unflattering about their country and going out of their way to assume negativity where none exists. It’s clear from his comment that
‘Africa or Uganda have been viewed as places that offer nothing but poverty and suffering by folks in other countries, who get most of their information off the internet from skewed blogs like yours.’
that he actually only read about two sentences of your blog, decided it was painting a negative picture of the country, and ignored all of the positive things you had to say about the people and surroundings, as well as all the pictures and video, which clearly show how much you obviously enjoyed yourself.
P.S. ‘The bush’ is indeed not a negative term, it’s used in many different parts of the world to describe rural areas and has no negative connotations whatsoever, as far I’m aware.