Warmth isn’t guaranteed at any time of day or night in what I very much want to name the ‘precipitation municipality’ -Kabale. For a first timer, it wasn’t overly awkward to ask questions like “why did they put the bananas in the fridge, cold as it is,” only to be told, “that’s the room temperature here.”
Breakfast in the open yard at Cephas Inn as journalists from Central and Western Uganda gathered for a media training organized by the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), wasn’t exactly a warm, sunny affair, rather, pairs of hands wrapped around tea cups, a scarf around the neck, hoodies up to the save and mild chatter from the informed colleagues warming their insides before a series of training sessions on reporting holistic tourism stories.
UTB is conducting series of trainings for stakeholders in the tourism value chain including tour operators and destination management companies, hotel owners and managers, travel agents, the media among others.
The trainings, according to Daniel Irunga, a senior marketing officer at UTB, are aimed at re-skilling and up-skilling the sector players with the latest knowledge in particular topics like customer service, digital marketing, taxation and Global Distribution System for travel agents in particular.
“The whole idea is to upskill and increase their (stakeholders in the tourism industry) capacity so that they are able to offer good customer service experience, they are knowledgeable on digital marketing and know how to position themselves to be competitive in their various spheres of trade,” Irunga said.
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This visit to Kabale was a first for a couple of my colleagues and I so we had moments of excitement, bewilderment and occasional epiphany.
It is 4:23 pm and there is still no hope for the sun peering through the unforgiving clouds, just a cool breeze sweeping the lane from the other side of the hill, propelling the banana leaves in the plantation down the hedge into a harmonized rustle. Seated on the veranda of a small sort of bar on the side yard of the Inn is a cold me, patiently waiting for my colleagues to make haste so we can board the coaster back to town.
I am already visualizing yanking the bedcover off and tucking myself in for some comfort and warmth at a motel along one of the town’s main streets, Kabale-Mbarara road. The idea of “comfort, and warmth”, for a split second, felt quite outlandish because the bed itself would be cold until my body generated enough heat to thaw the invisible ice in my should-be solace, the beddings.
Exploring the town after the days’ engagements became a promise I gladly and continuously broke over the course of the 4 days not just because of the cold that I wasn’t used to but also the lack of appropriate clothing since I ignored the “carry a heavy jacket” advisory, thinking to myself “it can’t be that bad, we are still in Uganda.” Well, what a way to unpack my ignorance!
Kabale has an average annual low temperature of 12.69ºC and high temperature of 21.38ºC compared to Kampala, the Country’s capital which has an average annual low temperature of 17.82ºC and high temperature of 26.32ºC.
A Sail Across Lake Bunyonyi
Our tour of Kabale climaxed with the visit to the scenic Lake Bunyonyi. Home to 29 islands, Lake Bunyonyi, a name loosely translating to ‘a place of many, little birds’, is a must visit for any one wondering how it would feel to zipline from one island to the other.
The road from Kabale town to the lake is not exactly safe especially after rains so our driver was keen on the marsh spots. The lake is about 7km west of Kabale town.
After waiting a great deal for the weather to clear up, we finally got the green light to get on the boats at about 11:15 am. Once everyone had their life jacket strapped, our guide didn’t have much instruction except a notification that he would be explaining and taking questions as we sailed. In a minute, the helmsman took to his seat, turned the key and the engine jerked to life.
A medley of the current rushing against the vessel, the dancehall beats of Alien Skin’s “Twayiseko Dda” and endless chatter got me into a subtle daze as I looked to the gloomy skies, wishing upon the islands for a bit of sun.
Before long, Kyahugye the ‘Animal Island’ was in view. This is the first Island from the mainland, famous for being home to wild animals including Impalas, Zebra, Waterbucks, the Kobs and the sole Debrasa Monkey.
Past Kyahugye, we approached Bwama Island, the biggest Island on Lake Bunyonyi which is also referred to as Sharps’ Island, a name it derives from its former proprietor Dr. Leonard Sharp, an English missionary who established a leprosy hospital on the Island in 1931, having realized the disease was widespread across East Africa.
The Leprosy Treatment Center was built ideally to create a safer and happier community of leprosy victims; both to prevent further infections but also to save the patients from stigma and discrimination from their home communities. The leprosy hospital has since been renovated to house a school administration block for Bunyonyi Secondary School.
The Island also has Bwama Primary School, a hospital and churches among other amenities. Here, unlike the shuttle services available for school going children in urban communities, pupils use dugout canoes to move from the shore or other islands to get to school. The day’s weather, stillness of the waters determine the students’ attendance among other factors. This, according to a teacher at Bunyonyi Secondary School, leads to acute absenteeism since they have no control over the weather.
However, there are efforts, especially from the visiting tourists and local NGOs such as the Lake Bunyonyi Development Company which is affiliated to the Church of Uganda, to procure safer boats for the students.
Next on our adventure was ziplining at the Supreme Adventure Park on yet another Island. On this short sail, we checked out the Punishment Island, a place with Bunyonyi’s dark history where girls who conceived before marriage were marooned and left to die. Traditionally, in Rukiga and most parts of Ankole, marrying off a virgin daughter was prestigious and it was rewarded with huge numbers of livestock.
For families where a girl got pregnant, it was seen as a shameful occurrence and the elders devised ways of doing away with the ‘shame’. For this particular community, the girls were taken to and abandoned on the Akampene ‘Punishment’ Island by their brothers.
49 girls were victims of this heinous practice, 3 died while the 46 were rescued by men who couldn’t afford dowry. Poor men rescuing abandoned girls was seen as an equally shameful act and the couple would many a times be banished from the community. One of the survivors, Mauda Kyitaragabirwe, recounted her story to the BBC in 2017.
Ziplining
Now, you don’t have to be an adrenaline junkie to succumb to the curiosity of what it would feel like swinging across the purported deepest lake in Uganda. I admit, I would never be the first on that zipline but going next wouldn’t be a problem.
Harnesses on, helmets fastened, the group barely sat still through the briefing, it was one of those “can we skip to the good part” moments and it was justified. The sun was up, finally, and there was no use delaying the fun a minute longer.
“Squat a little, are you comfortable? Okay, let’s go,” the instructor was quite nice and I swung into the air with a sense of safety. A tinge of unusual freedom is what I felt, watching the waters shimmer beneath me, wishing this thriller could last longer. This is exactly what my mother would call adult recklessness but I recalled her other phrase, “grab every opportunity to experience new things,” and off I swung with zero concerns.
Mine was a calculated landing and I was excited to witness other elated humans crashing into the woven string barrier at full speed. The return was more enjoyable even for those who were shouting at the top of their lungs during the first swing. Definitely an activity I would travel back to Bunyonyi for.
Other activities tourists can do in Bunyonyi include; community walks, boat cruises, canoeing, birding and hiking among others.
A pork and Beer Run
Away from the cold and precipitation tales, it would be a disservice to you, dear reader, if I didn’t fill you in on the joyous moments on the mainland.
Clearly, you wouldn’t expect the journey of over 8 hours from Kampala to Kabale not to have interludes of random talk about random topics. Pork scooped a good minutes’ discussion. As build up from the day’s chit chat about which town along the Mbarara-Kabale stretch has the best pork joints, our first night presented an opportunity to try the Kabale ‘kikalayi’ like it is commonly referred to in Central Uganda.
I have had my takes on different pork servings and cuts; the roasted shoulder cuts, pork ribs, juicy pork chops, the grilled tenderloin and some butter-glazed pork belly, oh back fat too. The mixture of fried pork cuts, vegetables and seasonings (the kikalayi), however, is a whole other experience, usually served with a limited palette of condiments and foods like boiled cassava, matooke and a light vegetable salad.
At about 10pm, we hit Manhattan Hotel for the Kikalayi. The aroma from the tiny, smoke-stained kitchen on the ground floor directed us from the street through a corridor whose floor could use some resurfacing, to a plastic table of four, which we turned into a table of 8. Fellows on the adjacent table had had their fill so we helped ourselves to the vacant chairs, beefed up our circle (typical of Kikalayi enthusiasts) and soon enough, two large silver platters made their way to the centre as waiting hands lingered on the edge.
As soon as the silver made contact with the plastic tablemat, the boys dug in like there would be no second chance, and I had no business waiting around for a chapel bell to ring. This, ladies and gentlemen, is dining the “kikalayi style”. My first landing was a soft catch, must have been a tenderloin piece, no bone, no fat, so juicy it had me licking my fingers after the bite made its way through the throat. It was silence for the first minute, just hands, mouths and swallows, till the fellow on the left corner asked “but what exactly are we eating?”
It was a valid question. The tenderness of this whatever we were served had us recalling our conservation responsibilities; what if it was some animal being poached for its soft meat? But we didn’t have time to follow through with the investigation- we had a good meal before us; the taste of the pork corroborated its appearance, yummy! Everything in balance; not an overused seasoning or underused vegetable, save for the lack of serviettes to clear some messes. We later learned that this particular serving had been left to slow boil, thus the excessive tenderness and savor it, we did.
Soon enough, the silver surface was visible with patches of cherry soup, a few bare bones and matooke peelings. It was time for the first round of beer which, unlike in the Kampala hangouts, was well below Shs 4,000. The events of the Kabale nightlife were laden with lots of fun, booze tales, ‘enturire’ runs for the adventurous individuals and of course the ‘what happens in Kabale stays in Kabale’ kind of social interactions.
