The Road to M’bale

Today we set off for…the north. Our operations are in the Karamoja region, which is a roughly 300-mile area in the northeast of the country. The actual town adjacent to our facility is called Namalu, however it is very remote and has no electricity, so before heading there, we went to the closest real city – M’bale.

First we had to get even that far. It’s about a 3 hour drive, give or take 11 cow-related traffic jams. This was the first time I was out of Kampala, and so it was a very different vibe. Kampala is either stable, relatively well off structures, or very poor shacks, but this was something else entirely – I saw some huts. I saw very few (3) white people in Kampala, but I’m assuming us pale folk don’t leave the city much, because people were staring at our car every time we slowed down and my lack of melanin was revealed.

Surprisingly, the drive reminded me almost exactly of the drive to Oneonta (see above). You leave the city and along the way you are surrounded by grass and hills, with some occasional small towns thrown in every so often. The fact that the grassy hills were inhabited by herding nomads, as opposed to enormous nativity scenes and snow, is just a minor difference.

This picture probably would have made the front page of the Daily Star, for what it’s worth:

We passed through a very large forest that is apparently one of the largest in Uganda. It’s pretty funny, you pass through enormous trees on both sides, come to a clearing, it gets wider and wider to lead you out of the forest, and just when you think God himself will appear, there is a giant billboard for Bell beer. This is a shot looking back as we left the forest. Considering all I've drank for 4 days is bottled water, I thought about consuming the billboard itself.


We also drove past a hydro plant, but I learned that hydro power only accounts for 2% of the country’s usage – the rest is mostly burning wood, which has been an environmental and deforestation problem. The coolest part, though, was when I realized the river we drove over was the Nile. It’s not Egypt, but you’re not messing around if you’re near the Nile River. You can see some of the power lines in the top left of the picture.

Once we get to M’bale it should be a pretty crazy day, but there were two other remarkable things about the drive up: my first actual hut picture, and a very large brewery, which you could smell for miles. M'bale: Swahili for Beer. (As an aside, most people in the country have a tribal dialect, then also speak Swahili so they can communicate outside their tribe. Many people also speak English, even outside the city. They also drive on the left side of the road, which means that the driver sits on the right. This also means that if you attempt to get in on that side as a passenger, people laugh at you).