Poverty, white water rafting, Danes, a country club, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and a plane crash (a.k.a. a weekend in Uganda)

1. Poverty

Back in my first post, I wrote the following (emphasis added):

Now on to my second point of reference: India. As most anyone who has been to India will tell you, you cannot escape the poverty; there are simply too many people. You could step out from the one of the nicest hotels or apartment buildings in Mumbai and instantly be confronted by several beggars, often malnourished and ill-clothed children. Even in the smaller towns, you will likely pass slums and shanty towns a child relieving himself by the side of the road.

In Nairobi, you can escape. As I’ve told everyone who unfailingly asks what I think of Nairobi, it is cleaner (though not clean) and much less crowded than I expected based on my experience in India.

Children provide a particularly pungent, and horribly sad, view of poverty. Bloated stomachs, the lack of necessity to be clothed, and immodesty mean children are often the clearest sign of impoverishment. It is for this reason that I made the bolded comments above, and also why I feel as if you can escape in Nairobi.

In fact, even in my visits to rural Kenya, driving through villages where children and adults alike gazed in awe at the car driving down pathways typically traversed by donkey and bicycle, I rarely saw kids in the aforementioned conditions.

In Uganda, it was a different story. Within a few minutes of the journey from the camp to the Nile (aboard a truck full of 40 Americans and Europeans paying $125 to ride an inflatable raft down a river), I saw probably a dozen kids either malnourished, unclothed, or both. Many of the ones who were clothed wore very simple clothing marred by dirt and tears. It was quite a contrast to what I've seen in Kenya; the images reminded me more of India. (True, perhaps I haven’t been to the poorest areas of Kenya yet, but I also doubt I was in the poorest area of Uganda.)

Despite this, however, the kids appeared as carefree as any others – pausing from their playtime to wave frantically at the truck of mzungus passing by.

2. Rafting and 3. Danes

Jinja, Uganda's second largest city (but less than 1/10th the population of the first, Kampala), is labeled as the "adrenaline capital of East Africa" by Lonely Planet. The center piece of this is white water rafting at the source of the Nile, the only major river in the world to run South to North.

I've been wanting to go white water rafting for a long time, and I'd heard the Nile was one of the best spots in the world. So I was pretty pumped, and it did not disappoint: grade 5 rapids, ridiculously warm water, great weather, good guide, fun group. At the same time, it was also pretty intense and even a bit scary at times.

Our raft flipped and/or we were thrown off on almost every rapid. "Silverback" was the craziest of the bunch. The raft capsized, everyone was thrown off, and a couple did not make it back to the boat. I was thrown under the raft, then quickly pulled away by the incredible force of current, and periodically dragged underwater; the longest stretch under was a good 6 or 7 seconds, but felt like much, much longer. At one point, I came up and saw our raft, still upside-down but only a couple yards away. An oar magically appeared outstretched (at least it seemed magical; in actuality it was extended by one of the Danes). Relieved, I grabbed a hold. Unfortunately, my relief was short lived.; a split second later, I felt the Dane slip away and watched the raft again shrink into the distance.

Seconds later, after surprisingly finding myself in one of the (relative) lulls in the rapid, I began frantically waving the Dane's paddle toward the safety kayaks, all the while fervently treading water. After a couple seconds of this, I realized the kayak was not, or could not, moving toward me with much haste. Somehow, I managed to gather my bearings, find the raft, and swim over to it.

A minute later, all but one of our group had made it back to the boat. But not unscathed. The plump Danish English-teaching-volunteer looked flabbergasted (it was clear from the moment we boarded the raft that this guy was going to struggle). The British guitar player had one of his toe nails ripped off. And the second Danish med student was MIA. We would find him hanging on to a safety kayak an unbelievable 5 minutes or more later - he had been pulled through the entire rapid and then some, ending up way down stream.

If you're keeping count, that's 3 Danes, not all travelling together. Our group was 7 total. For a country of only 5.5M people, that's pretty strong representation on a rafting trip in East Africa.

4. A country club

From Jinja, I took the shuttle to Kampala to meet up with the some volunteers from the local TechnoServe office.

Kampala is known for its nightlife, so I was excited to hit the town. (When I asked a Kenyan who attended university in the city about this, she said: "Kenyans are serious. They like to save. Ugandans enjoy life.") Unfortunately, half the group was experiencing a bout of food poisoning (the Icelandic girl turned out to have dysentery), and the other half were tired from a big night out the day before. We went out, but not hard, and the bars we picked did not seem to be Saturday spots.

So I didn't get to experience the nightlife of lore, but I did get to visit one of the city's nicest country clubs. After an amazing workout (first time I've lifted weights in over a month), we spent several hours lounging by the pristine pool. It was supremely relaxing and I almost spent the entire day there, but managed to convince myself I should at least see some of the city.

5. Muammar al-Gaddafi

Turns out there is not much to see in Kampala. It is a city known primarily for its safety and its nightlife. Indeed, the former rang true - I was quite surprised how we were able to walkabout so freely around the city. This would not be advisable in Nairobi.

One of the main sights is the recently built, grandiose Gaddafi Mosque, which sits triumphantly on top of one of the city's many hills. As the name suggests, it was paid for by Libya's infamous leader. The mosque itself was nice, but nothing extraordinary. The view of the city, on the other hand, was definitely worth the trip.

6. A plane crash

My flight back to Nairobi was scheduled for 845 AM Monday morning from Entebbe*, but was delayed and ended up leaving around 10AM. I arrived fairly early, around 730 AM. The airport was pretty empty, but I did not notice anything out of the ordinary. Besides the delay, everything went smoothly. After taking off in the first propeller plane I've flown in in a decade, I gazed over the waters of Lake Victoria. It was a pretty view and , again, I did not notice anything unusual.

It wasn't until Monday night that any of this became noteworthy. While catching up on news (using my new, incredibly fast wireless internet connection), I came across the following headline: "Uganda crash kills peacekeepers."

Intrigued given my recent trip, I clicked the article and was shocked to learn that this "crash" was a plane crash, and that it happened just a few hours - around 5 am - before I took off, from the same airport. Where was the media at the airport? Where was the search crew on the Lake?

A small plane crashes in Kansas, with no casualties, and it captivates CNN for hours (I've seen this several times). Yet here a plane, headed to the most ravaged and unstable country in the world (Somalia), where just weeks before a suicide bomber killed 11 peacekeepers, crashes and kills 10 African Union peacekeepers, and this doesn't even warrant a news crew?

I'm not really sure what that says, about CNN, the media, Africa, or Africans, but it's certainly interesting.

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*Entebbe the airport serving Kampala. Kampala is too hilly for an airport, so they built one in a smaller city ~30 miles away. An otherwise obscure airport, it became infamous as the site where a Palestinian-hijacked Air France plane from Tel Aviv landed and was subsequently raided by the Israeli Defense Forces.