Uganda: Kampala and the North

I have already given lectures at various places about my trip to Uganda with Viva con Agua in the spring of last year gehalten and pictures shown. And fortunately, a number of pictures from the trip found their way into the stories from the project areas at Viva con Agua. At one or others They may have already crossed your path - without you immediately being able to recognize that they were pictures of me are. It's not that important - as a photographer you don't go on a trip like this for your personal ego, but for the sake of it to help people.

Here on the blog I'm dedicated to showing the pictures strong held back. I am breaking this reserve today. However, I am hardly showing any pictures that are directly related to Viva con Agua. Instead, I have looked through my photos from the two weeks I was there and put together my favorite "side shots". I hope that this will give you an impression of the country. It is impossible to capture even a small part of a country half the size of Germany (area and population) in two weeks. Nevertheless, the differences are so great that a general feeling for this country - at least in comparison to Germany - can become clear. I spent most of my time in Kampala: the capital has almost as many inhabitants as Hamburg.

Uganda looks quite green from above, but after two weeks only the red dust remained on the camera and in the textiles.

The number one street food is called Rolex, actually rolled eggs. That describes the filling meal very well: vegetables depending on availability, chapati dough and eggs. It's available on pretty much every street corner for little money and helps with hunger, both big and small. The main individual taxi-like mode of transport in Kampala is the boda boda. A 250cc motorcycle that gets you from A to B more or less safely.

There is also a bus system in Kampala. The buses are called matatu - mostly Toyota, which in Uganda are licensed for 14 people. (I think in Europe it is a nine-seater...) This often only refers to "travellers" and then there are 16 people on the bus in addition to the driver and "touter" - plus the purchases from the weekly market or something like that. I often had someone sitting on my lap, because if in doubt you obviously don't leave anyone standing outside. The matatus travel on set routes through Kampala. Since the buses don't say where they are going, a "touter" sits at the large sliding side door, calls out the direction of travel from the window and regulates boarding and alighting at the stops. He also collects the money. It is therefore advisable to always have a few notes in your pocket. Depending on the section of the route, the journey costs between 500 and 1000 Ugandan shillings. That is the equivalent of €0,12 to €0,24. A really cheap way to get around the city.

I have just invented the term "Koberer" because I don't know what the very nice people at the passenger door are actually called. Once I had a more or less grasp of the system, I really enjoyed travelling in matatus. Of course, as a muzungu - that is, a white person - I was usually alone in such a bus. But it did lead to many interesting short encounters. Once we had to wait a while so that the matatu did not have to drive on with only a few passengers. The driver then called out in Luganda (a Bantu language widely spoken in the south): "You can go ahead and get in, we have a white person on board - we are travelling with God." My fellow passengers laughed, but of course I only understood the word "muzungu". A nice conversation developed with one of the fellow passengers, who could speak English as well as Luganda.

Even though the country was “colonized” by the English, not all locals speak English. In case of doubt, hands and feet help in communication – or the nearest neighbor who speaks English is called in. I have colonized deliberately put in quotation marks, because the destruction of the country's established structures by the English is actually to blame for a lot of poverty in Uganda.

One of the other problems concerns African culture, which has been almost completely taken away from the people. Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare – all well-known personalities around the world, but did you know that there were once dark-skinned pharaohs in Egypt? These came from northeast Uganda. There is also one of the cradle of humanity, probably also that of today's Europeans. Google Mount Moroto. Great scenic area, now so poor that Viva con Agua is building wells and, above all, toilets there together with Welthungerhilfe. The average citizen lives in the region of €0,30 a day.

Toilets there are usually communal toilets in a village, because there is not enough space in the village itself for individual toilets. We are of course talking about pit toilets here. A place has to be found for this too. The Catholic Church has quite a lot of land on which such community toilets could be built. Most of the time, however, the church denies the request. In contrast to Muslim communities, which are happy to be there for the population.

I always felt safe in Uganda, even in the slums of Kampala, even alone. Most people are very friendly and worth having a conversation. I was invited to dinner more than once. On my last day in Uganda, I was greeted warmly by one of the residents as I left a slum. He was very happy that a white man wandered into his neighborhood to get an idea of ​​his situation.

Taking photos is not always easy because many people believe that a photo steals a part of their soul. But polite questions has never done any harm.

Even if Uganda is not at the top of everyone's travel list - even if only for the gorillas in the southern border area with Rwanda or Congo - the country is definitely an interesting opportunity to expand your own horizons.