23rd January - Hoima to Kibale Forest

After finally checking out of the hotel we had a long drive south to Kibale Forest but luckily most of it was on tarmac road so it wouldn’t take as long as it would have done in the past.

Overladen and unsafe taxi

I sat in the front with Shindishi and he told me quite a few things about Ugandan life.  I’ll list them below in no particular order:

1.  60% of the country = Christians (Protestant and RC), 20%  = Muslim, 15% = Born Again Christians who think they’re more holy than anyone else (Shindishi’s words not mine), and 5% who either believe in nothing or in the old ways - what we would consider pagan today.

2.  There were a lot of signs along the road warning about sexual abuse with children.  I asked if this was a big problem and apparently it is - especially amongst girls.  Most young people are well educated in Uganda but at the end of their education, there are no jobs.  Pressure is put on the children by the parents who say they’ve sacrificed a lot and now need them to bring money in to the family as payback.  Another factor is that all the kids want the latest phones and computers.  So, the girls especially will prostitute themselves either with sugar daddies or with managers in hotels etc. In order to get money or jobs.  It’s very sad.

Black and white colobus monket

3.  That leads me on to HIV which is a huge problem here.  4 out of 10 adults will be positive and in the fishing community it rises to 6 out of 10.  With a population of 40 million that means that at least 15 million are HIV positive.

We passed tea plantations on route

4.  Apparently, sacrificing children is also a big problem in Uganda.  Shindishi told me that only 2 weeks ago, 2 children disappeared in Hoima - almost certainly to be sacrificed.  He said that in big towns and cities, young children had to be accompanied at all times to safe guard them.  Rich people believe that if they are building a new house then sacrificing a child and burying it in the foundations will bring them luck.  Also, traditional medicine men sometimes demand a young child’s head as part of a cure and if you can’t or don’t want to provide one, they will arrange it for a price.  However, the children must be pure and have no scars on their body - so, no Muslim boys as they’ve been circumcised and no girls who have had their ears pierced which is a common practise out here.  Shindishi told me that he even pierced one of his son’s ears to “scar” him to be on the safe side.  I found all this completely shocking.

Sunbirds

We eventually arrived at Primate Lodge - set in the middle of the Kibale Forest NP, which is 795km squared and considered a mid-altitude tropical rain forest.  It’s certainly the nicest place we’ve stayed in to date and has 2 huge thatched buildings which are curved and sit 2 sides of a beautiful tropical garden.  There are lots of cannas, bananas and aloes here which attract some beautiful butterflies and 2 different sun birds - the collared and variable.

The Chimpanzee dance

After a delicious lunch, we had the luxury of sitting in the library area where there are comfy seats relaxing and overlooking the garden.  It was just so nice to have some down time to ourselves.  At about 6pm, some local dancers and singers came to the lodge and sung for us accompanied by 3 different drums.  They also showed us various dances including the chimpanzee dance (performed at weddings), the elephant dance and an independent women’s dance.  It was a fantastic performance given to a very appreciative audience.  They’d also brought some local wares with them for us to peruse and hopefully buy, so we did some shopping.  You’ll have to admire our new bread basket in the future!!

View from the library

We got chatting to another lady here who is actually working here and is an interior designer and has been commissioned to breathe some new life into the lodge and update it.  We were amazed as this is by far and away the nicest and most comfortable lodge we have been to.  We agreed that Kenya and Tanzania and apparently Rwanda, all have lots of high-end lodges and to be honest, that is what we’re used to.  Uganda is almost in its infancy regarding tourism and it’s not considered an important part of the economy like the other countries mentioned.  The furniture is very rough and ready and clunky - almost Daniel Boone - and certainly the lodges are not sophisticated.  However, we all agreed that there is a certain charm about it and we didn’t mind that much.