Chapter Eight: On the Eighth Day, He Rested
Mayhem paused
12.04.2021 - 12.04.2021 81 °F
View Morocco + Uganda + Rwanda on paulej4's travel map.
Around six, I woke this Saturday morning to sad news. My friend Bill died yesterday.
IGA Bill (he was wildly successful in the grocery business) was a towering man with a black eye patch who drove a big black Cadillac sporting an engaging demeanor and who lived a large life enjoying a glass or two of good scotch with beautiful Cookie at his side. B4 and I enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with Bill and Cookie the day before these blog chapters began hitting your mailbox. On January 31, 2017, B4 and I attended his 80th birthday party at Sea Oaks, unforgivably late because we had just leased a new car and the paperwork took an abominably long time. Shamed at our tardiness, we snuck in only to be discovered by Bill with a warm greeting and instant forgiveness at our late arrival. He looked down on us from his lofty perch with a smile, not looking down on us for being late. That's Bill and Cookie and the pastor of Christ by the Sea United Methodist Church where the congregation will miss him. Rest In Peace Bill. Cookie, I send you a long, tight hug from the other side of the world. One man in Uganda mourns your loss.
I am taking a personal day, perhaps what even I would say is a well-earned day of rest. After last night's dinner of Bream--actually tilapia from neighboring Lake Victoria--and finishing that wonderful bottle of champagne, sleep, an unreliable companion, came back into my life. I got eight good hours before awakening to a seventy degree morning ushered in by crowing roosters not muffled by a slightly-too-loud African-type LG room air conditioner unit which does its job well but isn't afraid to let you know that it is about doing its work. I sit on this Hotel No. 5 Room No. 1 balcony overlooking a tranquil courtyard guarded by an unseen bird singing four notes, descending in 4/4 time in a non-aggressive song that is perfect accompaniment to my first cup of morning coffee. I only wish my daughter Megan, the planet's finest music teacher, was here to tell me what the notes are. And, in honor of my impending visit with the silverbacks, I am working on a silver face. B4 will not be happy.
WhatsApp has been conquered by B4 and me, an example of the ability of "older" users mastering emerging technology to minimize income expected by the telecommunication companies of the world. We chat for free as she prepares for sleep and I for the day ahead. The LG just took a break; the roosters and the songbird also demurred leaving only the cooing of doves for ambiance. I hear no jet planes, no trucks, no public address announcements, no clattering of luggage carts. Sadly, however, in the time it took to write that sentence, the LG returned from break.
I'm off to breakfast. Eggs Benedict.
In the opening minutes of the 2006 film “The Last King of Scotland” (for which Forest Whitaker won the best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Ugandan President and dictator Idi Amin) James McAvoy plays a fictional Scottish doctor who in a moment of crisis spins a globe and promises himself he will go to the first place it stops when he plants a finger. The first place turns out to be Canada. He spins again and ends up traveling to Uganda. I understand his wanderlust.
Not for spinning the globe but for other reasons, this Republic of Uganda is my origin point on this long-awaited journey. The Entebbe Airport—the scene of the Palestinian hostage taking which was the subject of the movie--(where I am) is 3,800 feet above sea level and just four miles north of the Equator and about ten minutes from this, my morning breakfast table. The average high temperature here is 80 degrees; the low 60. Uganda is probably best known for that eight-year rule of dictator Idi Amin which ended in 1979. He had presided over the murders of thousands of Ugandans (estimates range from 80,000 to 500,000 souls) and expelled an Indian minority who dominated the entrepreneurial economy. He was a very very bad man.
As you know, I landed yesterday at Entebbe Airport, the landing site in 1976 of Air France flight 8969 which had been hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. An Israeli commando raid freed the 100 Israeli passengers and crew after ten days—when other hostages from other nations had already been released. There are two pretty good movies to stream about this crisis. You should watch them.
Uganda is ringed by Kenya, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and, my other destination on this trip, Rwanda. Lake Victoria dominates the southern part of this nation. 42 million people live here, 20% of them in the capital city of Kampala. Colonized by the British, Uganda gained its independence in 1962 and violence became rampant. Today, 76-year-old president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni marks his 35th year as president after having being re-elected in January. He originally took office when his forces overthrew the previous regime in 1986.
The nation's flag’s black bands represent Black people, yellow bands sunshine and red bands the blood of unified Africans. A gentle natured grey crowned crane occupies the center, its leg raised to symbolize forward movement for the country.
Now nineteen months into the global COVID-19 pandemic, 10 million Ugandan school children have not yet returned to classrooms even though the country recorded only 67 deaths in October; I have yet to see a number for November. Ugandan education minister Janet Museveni (who is the president’s wife) was quoted in the New York Times last month as saying “the government did not want to risk having parents become infected by students who ‘would become orphans—just like H.I.V./AIDS did to many of our families.” President Museveni said schools would reopen next month as would still-closed bars, hair salons and other places of recreation. But that was before the news about omicron.
This long-serving president went to war with the Democratic Republic of the Congo back in 1998; 5.4 million died. He has defended against a years-long civil war waged by the Lord’s Resistance Army which has been accused of child slavery, mass murder and the Atiak Massacre when 200 to 300 were murdered by gunfire. The north of the country is still unstable; 1.4 million people are “internally displaced.” Torture, slavery and child labor are reported to widely exist here despite the latter two being “unconstitutional.” Gay rights are unheard of and were very nearly criminalized as recently as eight years ago.
There are untapped reserves of crude oil and natural gas, coffee is the primary export and the services sector is on the rise as an economic contributor. Work is underway to make certain that the oil and gas exploration and agricultural creep for coffee doesn't invade the habitat of the gorillas I and others have come to see. Poverty is on the wane as a result but the country remains as one of the poorest in the world. Four in ten Ugandans live on less than $1.50 a day. Nearly 9 of 10 Ugandans are Christian—about half of them Catholic. Gender equality is unheard of and women here suffer as a result. COVID school closings have resulted in many students dropping out of schools. The Times reported that “young women, abandoning hopes of going to school, are getting married and starting families instead.”
Because of all this, I have very mixed emotions about visiting here but have come anyway, drawn by the chance to visit mountain gorillas in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Visits such as mine are reported to be a primary driver of employment, foreign exchange and investment in Uganda which, fairly or not, helps me rationalize my visit. Surely Uganda needs foreign exchange as it currently hosts over a million refugees from violence and oppression in both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.
All news is local. This from The New York Times this morning: Israeli Company's Spyware Is Used to Target U.S. Embassy Employees in Africa "The iPhones of 11 U.S. Embassy employees working in Uganda were hacked using spyware developed by Israel's NSO Group, the surveillance firm that the United States blacklisted a month ago because it said the technology had been used by foreign governments to represent dissent, several people familiar with the breach said on Friday."
"Reuters reported earlier on Friday that Apple had notified the U.S. Embassy employees in Uganda last Tuesday about the hack. The people affected include a mix of foreign service officers and locals working for the embassy, all of whom had tied their Apple IDs to their State Department email addresses, according to a person familiar with the attack." Later, the article continued, "Apple asked the State Department employees to take several precautions, including immediately updating their iPhones with the latest software available... The company said that the attacks Apple had detected "are ineffective against iOS 15 and later." I am running iOS 14.8.1 on my iPhone 12 Pro Max. My Automatic Updates are turned to "On." But, inspecting further, I notice that iOS 15.11 is available for manual download but my phone hasn't performed that duty yet. So, I'll do it manually; my phone will be down for "about 1 hour..." according to the screen. A few moments later, "Abut 2 hours remaining..." After 4 hours the download had finished and installation of it began. At Noon: Software Update Complete. Your iPhone has been updated to iOS 15.1.1.
I decide to check on the software for my MacBook Air while I'm at it. Apple says, "The latest version of MacOS is 12.0.1" That's what I am running.
At the pool, it is time to update all my paperwork and rid my backpacks of any unnecessary weight. There is a strict 15 kilo weight limit on my flight tomorrow morning to Kisoro Airstrip. Traveling halfway around the world with a camera, a computer, a GoPro and all the ancillary chargers that are required for that mess leaves not enough capacity for needed muck boots, anti-thorn clothing/gloves/hat, etc. I anxiously await the results of my on-arrival PCR test as well. I can't break this quarantine and go anywhere, let alone fly away, until it comes back "Negative." Asking at "Reception," Peace says she will follow up with her contact at the airport. Did I discern a look of distress when I told her my results weren't back yet?
Around 11:30, this item from The East African News, datelined yesterday, pops up on my news feed. Twitter shuts 3,000 propaganda accounts in Uganda, five other countries. I wonder if that is the 'service industry' on the rise here; I hope not. "Twitter on Thursday said it had shut down nearly 3,500 accounts that were posting pro-government propaganda in six countries, including Uganda, China and Russia. The vast majority of the accounts were part of a network that "amplified Chinese Communist Party narratives related to the treatment of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang, Twitter said in a statement. The accounts promoted claims from a fictitious Swiss biologist, Wilson Edwards, that the United States was interfering in efforts to identify the origins of the coronavirus." So it is the same in Uganda as in the U.S. My truth is true to me; your truth is true to you. It's those pesky Kellyanne Conway Meet The Press interview "alternative facts" that get in the way. Oh, and the out and out liars.
Later on, another of the No 5 staff locates me at the pool to present me with my written Negative COVID-19 PCR test result. Another hurdle cleared.
Sydney McLaughlin, 22, representing the U.S.A. in the 2020 Olympics won Gold in the 400 meter hurdles and is the current world record holder: 51.46 seconds. Paul Russell, 73, representing Vero Beach in the 2021 Morocco lockdown to Kisoro Airstrip Gorilla Trek hurdles may may not hold the record. But, whatever the actual results are, he must be close.
A monkey visitor observed me writing away just now. The young woman at the lower right just completed a bunch of laps in the pool. The monkey in the upper left just finished eating a bunch of palm fruits. The man at right just tested Negative for COVID-19. That's the same result he got in Vero Beach when CVS completed his pre-departure test. That's the same result he got in Marrakech when a local lab completed his pre-departure test. That's the same result he got in Dubai when the Dubai government completed his pre-departure test. And, now it is again the same result when the government of Uganda completed his arrival test. It is said that "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." But with the global scourge that is the coronavirus, "testing, testing, one, two, three" is fine by me. The injustice of all this, however, is that in the U.S., probably the richest country on the planet, this test was free. In Morocco, Dubai and Uganda, it must be paid for. I can afford it. What about those who make $1.50 a day and can't? You don't have to be Albert Einstein to know that is wrong.
As I have now completed my "quarantine," clouds roll in (a bit after 2:00) and it feels like rain. At 2:45, the power went out, but just for a minute. Then it went out a few more times but, again, just for a minute. There is a new humming however. Generator? It never did rain. But the No. 5 Hotel seems to be ready for what comes. They have taken wonderful care of me.
When Emirates airlines started passing out little parting gifts to deplaning first class passengers, I mentioned to the purser that if they had any extra chocolates, etc., I'l love to take them off her hands. I explained what I was going to be doing and said I would give them out as gifts. She thought that sounded great and heaped a bunch of chocolate bars, etc., that other passengers didn't want. But as soon as I got outside the terminal I remembered something: its hot here.
Knowing the chocolate won't travel well, I began giving each staff member at No. 5 one of whatever I had. They all get these big smiles on their faces and their eyes twinkle wondering what this goofy old man is up to. But, for me, it's all treat; no trick.
Connectivity may be iffy for a week or so. The promptness of posting these chapters could be interrupted. For those of you who have mentioned that you "can't wait for the next chapter," please know that I will make every effort to not disappoint. For those of you who are sick of getting the Travellerspoint email every afternoon, enjoy your respite.
I'm rested and ready for a very early start tomorrow: heading for the mountains. You can read all about it in 24 hours.
