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Day 9
Uganda
Now, this country might not be at the top of everyone’s lists of holiday destinations, but when you watch enough David Attenborough and learn about the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, we decided it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience something completely different.
We were jabbed to the hilt: yellow fever, cholera, you name it, we got it. We had no idea what to expect other than a list of guest houses and day trips on our week-long tour of Lake Victoria, Lake Edward and the Queen Elizabeth National Park.
And what about the food! We researched all the usual advice; stick to bottled water, no ice in drinks, but what would the food be like!!
Our first meal of the trip was on the plane courtesy of Turkish Airlines. Our first breakfast in Kampala was fresh orange juice and toast, which was welcome familiarity given that we were tired from the journey and slightly bamboozled about where we were.
We had a guide for the week, Moses, who picked us up for the first long drive to Kibale National Park and midway we stopped at the side of the road for a picnic. It was a basket of sandwiches and fruit that Moses’ wife had prepared for us. Such a simple offering of some of the tastiest bananas we’d ever eaten, and jam sandwiches caught us off guard. We’d never met this lovely lady, but she had made the most beautiful lunch delivered by her husband knowing that she wouldn’t see him for the next ten days while he accompanied us on tour.
We spent the following two days tracking chimpanzees, and the end of each day was celebrated with a local beer and tilapia fish from Lake Victoria. Lunches were never really a thing as you ate a hearty breakfast of eggs, pastries, fresh fruits and coffee and then spent the day on safari seeing lions basking in the shade, antelope dashing around and zebras nervously watching the horizon.
We drove through some small villages enroute to our various overnight locations and were surrounded by clamouring children that sang, smiled and laughed. Moses had told us that pens and pencils were like currency for villages as they helped children attend school, so we armed ourselves with boxes of biros that were eagerly taken. We were made to feel so welcome, and the smallest of gestures seemed to go a long way.
The culmination of our tour was spending time in the Bwindi tracking mountain gorillas and on the first day, our six-hour trek was rewarded by spending an hour with the Habinyanja family of twenty. Reaching 1700m altitude through coffee and tea plantations, the hike was challenging but knowing what lay ahead kept us going. Food fell to the back of our minds and a quick stop for a green banana straight from a tree or a wrapped boiled egg from our tour guide was a representation of how bizarre our diet became.
But what struck us was the generosity of our hosts and the emphasis that was placed on food not being a major part of your day. Food wasn’t scarce. It was available when we needed it, but there was so much else going on that it was something to look forward to at the end of a long day rather then being the focal point of the day itself. It’s easy to say that, when you are distracted with chimpanzees, baboons, mountain gorillas and a host of other wildlife in front of you, but we never went hungry and food was shared equally with everyone without question.
Living in Scotland with seafood on our doorstep that is under-utilised, to see the local tilapia fish from Lake Victoria being offered with every meal was a pleasing sight. Fried banana fritters and custard were a popular dessert, and we were encouraged by Moses to try Matooke: steamed green bananas, which was delicious.
Uganda was an experience that we will never forget but in terms of memories, food was not in the foreground. We may never quite manage to put into words how Uganda changed us permanently and rewired our consciousness, but we have tried our best to bring that experience to bear in what we now do on a daily basis. To travel there and be welcomed so warmly, to be hosted as a friend and trusted to experience the wildlife was transformational. Eating was a communal experience to discuss the day’s events and a roadside picnic was enough to sustain you for the ride ahead. Those with the least offered the most and gracious hospitality is something that we have never forgotten.
This is Day Nine in our series sharing 31 Food Memories for the 31 Days of August.
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