I had the nice beef stew and a couple of those bready, donut
things with a cool Fanta before walking to the office. 2 out of 5. I hung around for a
while before I was asked at 9.50am to interview the Resident District
Commissioner. We got to his office at 10am to get jokingly delivered short
shrift as unbeknownst to me the appointment was for 9am. He was a stickler for
punctuality. Still we rearranged to meet at 12.30pm once he’d seen the long
line of people outside his office.
The RDC is the local representative of the Office of the
President and amongst other duties is responsible for security in the entire
district, the subject I was going to interview him on. So back to the office
for two hours of hanging around during which time I had a good chat with the
rest of the office staff and interns. I managed to learn a bit more Teso which
will be useful for my next trip on the 23rd June.
Eventually after waiting for the RDC to settle a bunch of
local disputes we had a good chat about the security concerns in the region.
The situation with the Karamajong seems to have settled down over the past few
years. There has only been one incident of cattle theft in the past six months
and that was more commercial in nature than previous tribal conflicts.
After the interview it was back to the office again to get
packed and ready for the long journey to Kampala after a staff meeting to
review the success so far of the survey especially considering it was only
signed off with a very limited budget the Friday before. The Regional Director
was keen for me to stay in Amuria for another week, but I’ll definitely be
coming back several times over the next 11 months.
On the way back to Kampala on the horrible Soroti to Mbale
road we stopped off at several roadside markets to get several kilos of
mangoes, rice, six chickens and two turkeys. I kept forgetting about our avian
passengers until every now and then one emitted a squawk after hitting a particularly
dodgy pot hole. From Mbale onwards it was dark and that proved to be an
interesting passenger experience for 5 hours. Finally just before the hostel
closed at 1am I was dropped off by Godfrey the superb shuttle driver.
It’s a Bank Holiday weekend here for Martyr’s Day, which I’ll
spend most of my time relaxing and enjoying the luxuries of warm running water
and almost always on electricity and an internet connection. I’ve also got a
slightly larger room (Gorilla) with a set of shelves and a power socket so a
right result all-round.
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