23rd of January, 2018.
First of all I get lost. I have no idea how. This time I just kept walking straight, so how the hell did I end up going completely left? I have no idea. Maybe Google Maps in Uganda is just as wrong as in Mauritania.
I figure that out when I walk into a hotel to ask for information. There, not just the nice waitress try to help me but also a white man who was working in his computer. After he tells me about the road I am looking for, he also advises me to not camp in the ‘Park’ I had seen in Google Maps. He says I would be safer if I try the Cathedral of that District, Budanga, so it is where I head up.
Unfortunately, the street is a hill, which for me it means is a hell. I sit under a tree and eat my apple and my sliced carrot.
Before reaching the Cathedral, I pass through a kind of Catholic University which also is a library. What catches my attention it is the big grass space.
Talking with the guard, a nice young man, he walks with me until the manager. In the opposite of him, she does not look at all as wanting to help me. Of course you can assume the answer for my question if I could make camping around.
Walking back, the guard says something really sweet: “I feel sorry that it not depends on me to let you stay or not”.
I keep going uphill, I pass throw a hospital before the church. Taking rest in front of the church, an senior and simple lady walks in my direction, point to my tattoos and tells me that god does not like that. She is not rude, by the opposite, she says that in a kind way. Still, because the Catholic University refused to help me, that was the second sign for me that I should not ask to stay in the Cathedral.
I try the Hospital. The supervisor lead me to a kind of Human Resources, where a nice local lady is. I explain my situation to her and unfortunately while she is thinking in how to help me another lady enters. I do not know from where she is but her accent sounds a little British. And then she starts to be my nightmare.
She sounds like someone who are always watching the news. She also knows about hitchhiking and backpackers. The things is, for the whole time I am there, explaining about my trip and my plans, she is a complete prat and unpleasant person.
She says the most cruel things, like “When she get a big rape than she will stop”, answering the other nice local lady, Mary, when she asked me if it was not unsafe to travel like that. Or saying that travelling without money and asking for help it is nothing but “being a burden to the other people”. And while she is saying all those terrible things, she would keep doing what ever else, like typing a message or looking for a phone number, as that was a super regular way to talk with people. At least maybe for her.
I just do not get it. How someone who suppose to help people, help those ones who need, can be so mean? It is not just like the UN guy, being a jerk, she was being mean. Saying mean stuff without even care about how the other person could receive. It is not about saying the truth or something like that because is not a fact the I will be raped or even that if happen I will stop; and also is not a fact the I am a burden for the others: I ask for help, I do not obligate anyone to help me, they do if they want. And if they do not want, they simply do not. She was wearing a huge silver cross hanging on her neck. How can you call yourself a Christian if you deny helping other and hurt their feelings with your grumpiness, out of nothing else but pleasure?
Mary is truly trying to help me. She is thinking in calling her superiors and ask them if I could make camping around. I did not let her. I say I would find my way. Of course the other lady could not let me leave without do something: what would look like if a Christian let somebody without help. So she call a boda boda, the term in Uganda for moto taxi (which is the main way of transport here, by the way), and ask him to drive me to the Backpackers Hostel.
Before I leave, Mary try to give me five thousands Xelins. When I kindly refure but she keeps insisting, the other woman takes the money from her hands, and force it back into her pockets. What is the problem with this woman I will never know.
Should I had said something? Tell her everything I was thinking about her attitude? Or it would be also a mean thing to do? Maybe not if I had said because she was hurting me like she was. I do not know. The only thing I did it was when saying goodbye to Mary, I thankful her for her kindness and help but when I was saying goodbye to the mean lady I just said thank you for you help.
Riding the boda boda with the backpack is really awful because it keeps pushing you back all the time.
At the Hostel, I explain my situation to the receptionist and she decide to go and talk with the manager. She comes back with a negative answer. Nothing? They could do nothing to help me? That is so bad.
Going back to the road, I just could not find any houses with big gardens where I could also ask to make camping. And also, after all the unhelpful people I have been meeting, I could not get optimistic that I would find some help. So I stopped in the Police Station and explained everything again. There are two ladies there responsible for the “Child and Family Assistance”: Agnes and Emilie. They are nice. The place is something around 12 m² and they let me stay there for the night.
Now I just need to find some food. I am starving. Emilie try to give me ten thousand Xelins to buy some food. I make a deal with her: I would ask for food, if nobody gives me anything, I would use the money to buy something, otherwise I would give her the money back.
I get an apple, an orange, a sliced bread, a small cake, and from the restaurant I have been before to ask for help, I get some good quantity of rice and beans from the nice waitress. My bag is full of food and I came back very happy to be able to give Emilie’s money back.
Unfortunately she is not there and because I would have to leave early in the morning, I write her a note with my results from the night, my email address and the money and I give to one of the other Police officers over there.
After eating, I wash it up, put just the first part of my tent because of the mosquitoes and the ants and try to sleep. The station is just beside a busy road, so in the beginning it is complicated, but not more than my day. I am still pretty tired form the flight as well, so soon enough I fall sleep.
10 Years Around the World 