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Uganda: First impressions

April 29, 2009 03:19 PM | Posted by   Anna Rice  

It’s been two weeks since I stepped off the plane in Kampala, Uganda. In some ways it feels like I’ve been here for months, in other ways it feels like every day is my first.

Before arriving to Uganda I’d been to Africa only once before, and that was only to compete. As any athlete can attest, when you visit a place for a sporting competition your priority is to make yourself as comfortable as possible by taking control of as many variables as you can in order to acclimatize yourself to a new environment.

For the first time since I can remember, I’m allowing the environment to dictate, what is both extremely challenging and thrilling at the same time.

A long way from Denmark

My first weeks in Uganda are all the more interesting because I moved here straight from Scandinavia. It is no coincidence that the Danes invented Lego toys, which are based on symmetry and order. The orderly and impeccably structured Danish society often reminded me of a life-sized Lego Land.

Enter Kampala.

Structure and symmetry are definitely not the first words that come to mind, though energetic and vibrant certainly are. To try to give you a sense of how different life in Uganda is compared to that in Denmark, a comparison of the public transit system proves to be an excellent metaphor.

In Denmark, the array of buses, trains, subways and orderly bicycle lanes make moving around town painstakingly easy, if not boring. Just don’t expect anything out of the box, like casual conversation with a stranger or the bus driver to drop you even ten feet before the designated and clearly marked bus stop.

In Kampala, there are no trains nor pubic buses per se. Bike lanes? Well sure, every road serves as a bikeway, and a motorway, and a walkway, and a parkway. What Kampala has that Denmark’s rules and regulations would never allow for, are ‘boda bodas’, in other words, scooter taxis.

They’ll whisk you off to your desired location anywhere in the city, so long as you’re willing to risk your life as these young Evel Knievels weave through traffic dodging potholes and oncoming vehicles as if starring in a speedway video game.

Until I purchase my own helmet (and seemingly become the only geeky ‘boda boda’ passenger to wear one), I’m opting for the second mode of public transport, which is a taxi bus. Taxi buses here are mini vans that serve as the public buses would in Denmark or Canada. No need for bus stops, just wave your arm by the side of the road and your chariot awaits. They are 12-seater vans (though usually they contain closer to 20 passengers at a time) and they drive around the city following a particular route, picking up everyone (and everything - I sat beside a live chicken just yesterday) along its path.

As different as this transit system is to anything I’ve experienced before, I must admit it not only functions, it thrives. I’ve never had to wait more than a minute for a taxi bus to come along, and in two weeks I’ve had more friendly conversations with complete strangers (in some cases while holding a child or two of theirs on my lap) than I had in eight years in Denmark. Might I add that a trip across Kampala costs a maximum of 85 cents, while a similar ticket across Copenhagen would set you back about $12.

My first (and hopefully last) emergency hospital visit

I expected this blog would be about an International tournament I was planning to attend in Kenya this past weekend. Unfortunately, en route to the airport, my visiting fiancé Bobby (who also plays on the Canadian Badminton Team) passed out and had to be rushed to hospital. It seems he had an allergic reaction to the anti-malaria medication he was taking.

Although both Bobby and I are singles players, we had actually entered the mixed doubles event in Kenya, our first international tournament as partners on the court. I knew Bobby was on the road to recovery when he jokingly said to me: “let’s look on the bright side, I think I saved our marriage by preventing us from stepping on the court together”.

Two exciting weeks ahead

Despite not being able to participate in the Kenyan International tournament, all is not lost for Bobby’s visit. Starting tomorrow, we will be joined by a third professional badminton player (our friend and IOC Athletes Commission member Pedro Yang), as the three of us spend the next two weeks running badminton programs at two major refugee camps in Uganda.

The first week we will travel to the Nakivale refugee camp, a couple of hours outside of the south-western city of Mbarara. The following week we will travel to the Kyangwali refugee camp, which is a couple of hours drive from the city of Hoima in mid-western Uganda.

Right To Play coaches within the camps will partake in the badminton sessions to learn about the game so they can continue the badminton program after our departure.

I’ll be sure to report back to fill you in on how things go at the refugee camps.

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