ARTEFACTO A PLACE WHERE TO START – By Adrian Palacios

Oli otya? Gyendi! – Uganda I

I recently traveled to Uganda, where Yael -the amazing woman that I'm fortunate to share my life with these days - is now working. Uganda is in the East side of Africa, just over the Equator and its your best bet for getting to know a bit of Africa if it's your first time there.  (continues)

In an attempt to be surprising and "original" I got there a day earlier than I told Yael I was going to, so after liaising with three local accomplices, Irene, her brother Michael and Carol , we managed sit her on a restaurant that evening, thinking that Irene wanted to introduce her a very nice guy who was interested on her: Michael. After some suffer-making I came to her rescue and then... I was in Uganda.

I spent the morning in the busy streets of Kampala on my own. The city is a huge pot of lively and heavily used roads where every corner awaits with small stalls selling food and gifts. People is generally nice and the "Oli otya sebo"  followed by my own "Gyendi!" is a must in your every days greetings. Traffic laws are almost non existent, which I loved by the way: crossing the roads is an exercise of caution and sight and hearing accuracy where the speedy boda-bodas can always fool you very easily.

Many times during the first few days memories from my time in Cuba came to my mind. Kampala is a city where you constantly see people in the streets, with a unmistakable smell to low octane petrol and with a poorly maintained infrastructure. At the same time the people radiates happiness, they are always happy to talk and they feel extremely proud of their country, all this mixes with the local culture, that as you can imagine, is very distant to anything we know in Europe. It felt like Cuba in that sense too. Initially you get in to a state of euphoria, where eating the local food, being called Muzungu and riding the life threatening taxis is fun. And don't get me wrong, I had amazing time in Cuba, as I did in my short stay in Uganda, but I can imagine how this environment ends up taking its toll and shows how much we, Europeans, are not used to that lifestyle and culture, is just not so easy as it appears in the first place.

 

Author: Adrian

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