Day 23, Various, Soroti and Amuria and photos

Well I was a bit premature on Sunday as it turns out the hour long drive from Soroti to Amuria isn’t viable every day. As such we’ll be leaving Soroti and staying in Amuria for the rest of the time. It was also an early start today for the first day of the survey in earnest. Breakfast was the same as the previous day. When we reached Amuria we immediately went even further North to the various villages. There was one particularly bad pothole that the driver noticed a bit too late and a short while later we had to stop to change the wheel on the flat tire. The tyre on the spare wheel was tiny and wouldn’t last long on these dirt roads, still it was all we had. The car would eventually have to go back to Soroti to have the flat fixed.

The offending flat

After a while, and a change of driver we came across a road crew putting in drainage pipes across the road. Well I say putting in, what I mean is putting on top of and then covering over with a ramp of dirt to create 2 foot high speed bumps. We beached the car on the first of these so had to get out and push to free up the car and then walk alongside it as it summited the rest of them. Eventually we arrived at Airabet, one of the villages that were were running the survey in. Our destination was the local Primary School.

Homestead near the school

Our arrival was one of the most interesting events in the area. Vehicles are such a rare event round these parts all the kids couldn’t help have a look at what was going on and what the strange white man was doing here. One thing I noticed is that no matter where you are or how remote you might think you are there are people everywhere, the population density in these parts is still low, but homesteads are dotted around liberally so when you think there’s nothing around, you’re wrong.

At the primary school I found out I was to interview the Head Teacher. The questionnaire was different to the one posed to the individual farmers, but was primarily about food security for the children when they are in school. There were also some questions about tribal conflict and interactions with the neighbouring Karamoja tribe who have been a source of conflict in the region over many years.

This school has 10 acres of farmland of which 8 is used exclusively by the teachers, so only two acres is available for food production for the children, and that hasn’t been able to produce any food as farm animals regularly eat the crops in between term time when no-one is actively farming the land. My colleagues interviewed one of the teachers, one of the PTA, and one of the School Management Committee.

Another building near the school

 My Lugandan isn’t particularly good at the moment, but this isn’t a problem in this region as they speak a different language completely called Teso (which is also the name of the tribe). Interviews complete we headed off to another village to meet up with two other colleagues who are on newly donated dirt bikes co-ordinating and mobilising with the field shuttle the researchers in the field, as well as conducting interviews themselves.

We waited by the village’s borehole pump, where people and cattle come from far and wide to down the small tracks to get fresh water. Yet again the shuttle and I were the local entertainment with large groups of kids and teenagers fascinated with everything I did, especially when I wrote notes in my diary. The villages are connected by small dirt tracks not much more than a path. The driver of the shuttle did a great job all week navigating around all the villages. The homesteads are a small cluster of one or more circular mud brick huts with thatched roofs. The landscape is still green and red, but it’s very flat, with the nearby hills of the Karamoja visible on the horizon.

The "Road"

We then headed back to another larger village, Kapelebyong, where we met up with all the researchers for a debrief. We’d asked them to do a minimum of 7 surveys, which is exactly how many they all completed. Many of them said that they could have done more, so we upped the daily quota to try and complete the survey quicker, whilst still paying them for the original total number of days. They each got 20k UGX (less than £5) per day making this one of the more lucrative jobs in the region.

Beached again on the way back

 It was then back to Amuria to find lodgings for our time here. We were recommended the CV Conference Villas, easily the biggest building in town as it was the only one with a first floor. The rooms were reasonably clean doubles with en-suite bathrooms. There was no running water though, so a bit pointless. Still a proper Western toilet was better than a long drop even if I had to manually fill the cistern. Oh, there was no mains electricity either, it had solar panels which were good for a bit of electric light from 7pm to 9pm. 

Found a stick for traction

 For supper all the VAD staff got together as it was the Regional Director’s birthday. We headed to a pork joint, which was a very tiny shack where sat down on benchs and the ubiquitous plastic garden chairs beloved of You’ve Been Framed. There’s only one thing on the menu and we had a large 4 kg heaped platter of barbequed pork with potato wedges. I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the meat. The pork was delicious and succulent without too much fat or bones. There was even a shaker of dried peri peri chillies to add a bit of kick. 3 out of 5. The al fresco dining was enhanced by the amazing night sky, as there are very few places with electricity (including the pork joint) the town is mostly pitch black and so all the stars are visible, not like in polluted Kampala. There was also a spectacular sanguine moon rise to watch, at first I thought it was a fire in the distance.

Since the pork joint doesn’t serve drink we headed to the pub. The pub had enough leccy for lights, too loud music and it also had a couple of pool tables. It didn’t have enough for a fridge though so the beer was warm. After a couple I headed back to the Villas to do my homework under torchlight. We had 126 completed questionnaires that needed to be checked for completeness and consistency so we could give feedback to the researchers tomorrow. The bed was one of the shortest I’ve slept in and thanks to head and foot boards it wasn’t the most comfortable nights sleep.