Gonja and roasted goat: bus travel from Kampala to Fort Portal
The bus from Kampala to Fort Portal leaves at 7 o’clock in the morning and I am told to be there an hour beforehand. I catch a boda boda across the city as the early morning traffic gathers. It’s refreshing to be driving through the cool early morning air with my bag packed for five days on the edge of Kibale Forest – away from the laptop.
Our boda heads downtown – avoiding a certain saloooon – where we are surrounded by thousands of people all jostling to get to work, to sell their wares, gearing up for the day ahead.
As we turn a corner, a tall man in bright green overalls shouts “Link? Link?”
I wasn’t sure where to find the Link bus park but there’s no mistaking the man in green who runs up the street to a yard filled with buses of the same bright green. The word LINK is written in large yellow letters.
I don’t have change (balance) so the man in green offers to take my money and buy a ticket for me and come back with the change for my boda boda. No thank you. He seems legitimate enough but I’m wary. (Once-upon-a-boyfriend-ago, a similar move in Cairo by a very helpful stranger separated us from all our money – on the first day of our holiday). Alert for similar tricks, I walk to a shop opposite the Link bus station, buy two bottles of water and have the change I need to pay for my boda boda and my bus ticket without using an intermediary.
On board I squash myself in near the back of the bus. I choose to sit near a lady and her baby. She beams at me as I sit down.
“But I need some water,” she says very loudly (to me?)
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to make of this so I choose to ignore her.
Before the bus departs for Fort Portal, a man walks up and down the aisle selling cakes. A small round cake is 500 Uganda shillings; a big square slab of cake is 1000 shillings. I opt for the smaller cake to accompany my breakfast apple.
The bus leaves on time.
I check WhatsApp while we are still in town. The guy next to me seems very interested in everything on my phone screen. “Ooo Facebook!” He exclaims. I try and ignore him and shield my screen from his interested eyes. His gaze keeps coming back to my phone. I glare at him. Out of the corner of my eye I see his ‘Nokia’ phone. I guess he is envious of my Smartphone. I feel bad for thinking mean thoughts.
We are seated one row in front of the back row. In my rush to get a seat I have (again) forgotten how I will regret sitting over the back wheel of the bus.
As the bus hits the open road to Fort Portal, phone networks go off and everyone settles down for a snooze. There’s a blast of cold wet air. Every time we slide the window shut, the juddering and shaking of the vehicle reopens it. The lady pulls the blanket over her child’s head. I try and keep myself warm by putting my bag on my lap.
The lady is trying to keep the window closed to keep her baby warm. The man sitting between us has fallen asleep. “Typical husband,” I think. “He’s asleep while she’s worrying about the baby.” I’m worried the baby is as cold as I am, so I fold a small piece of paper and pass it to her, thinking she may be able to use it to wedge the window shut. “Do you want me to put it out of the window?” She motions.
No!
I doze and am woken by the ringing of a phone. This lady does love to chat. I hear her cough and I get up to retrieve the second bottle of water from my bag. If she’s breast-feeding, she must need water.
We are halfway to Mubende before I buy my ticket. The ticket seller slowly works down the aisle, writing out each ticket by hand. The guy next to me peers into the pocket of my bag. I try and retrieve my money without showing him exactly how much I am carrying. He’s craning his neck to have a good look. The guy selling tickets doesn’t have enough change so he writes 5,000 UGX and his signature on the back of the ticket to denote that he has to pay me my balance.
At Mubende, plastic bowls full of roasted gonja and cardboard boxes of water and sodas are pushed up to the bus window. Someone waves roasted meat at us through the gap. I opt for a chapati. “Roasted or dry?” The young man asks me helpfully. I understand enough of the lady’s Luganda to know that she is complaining about the prices. She sends the young man to the shop with her order for orange squash and goat.
“I have liked you,” she said. “You can give me your number so I can call you.”
She tells me that she is going to Kasese (the stop after Fort Portal) to visit her parents for a few days and that she will go back to Kampala to see her husband.
“I thought this one was your husband?” I ask.
“No. This one I just met him on the bus.”
The young man jumps back on the bus brandishing wooden skewers of glistening roasted goat. He offers me one. It’s kind of him but I’m not in the mood for roasted goat. (I also recall the advice not to accept food or drink offered by strangers on public transport). This pair seem kind enough though.
He removes the flimsy bag (polythene paper in Uglish) from around the meat and screws into a small ball. He passes it to the woman who knows exactly what he wants her to do with it: she forces it out of the window.
He sits next to me, tearing at the meat with his teeth. His teeth hit a bone which he spits at his feet. A small heap of goat bones accumulate on the floor between us. The smell of roasted meat fills the air.
The chat chat chat starts again. I like this couple. She and her baby remind me of my niece and her baby. She is loud but friendly. He reminds me of someone from the village. He appears uneducated but innocent.
More passengers squeeze onto the bus. A lady passenger places her big bag on the aisle and sits on it and we’re off again. I am still standing up when the driver slams on the brakes. The guy next to me grimaces; I hang onto the side of the seat. There’s never a dull moment on the bus to Fort Portal.
On the other side of the aisle is a Muslim lady wearing a bright yellow headscarf and pink lipstick. She wears a bold kitenge print dress and an eyeful of cleavage.
I pull out a large tourist map of Kampala, fully expecting the young man to ogle at it and start asking questions. I’m rather pleased with my new map: KCCA have launched a tourism map of the city and I’m interested to see which places feature on it.
Nothing! The young man doesn’t even glimpse over. I read the map, unfold it, turn it over, fold again. I’m amazed – the guy doesn’t register interest even once! Is tourism just ‘a white people thing’ I ask myself?
I ask myself: I wonder if he can read? Or perhaps it’s only money and phones that make him tick?
The ticket inspector returns to check our tickets and I politely remind “sebo (sir)” whether he has my balance yet. He doesn’t seem to hear me.
“*Gwe!” Yells the young man, trying to back me up.
*It’s a little rude considering “Gwe” is old enough to be the young boy’s father!
Road travel from Kampala to Fort Portal via Mubende – tips for travelers
- There’s a universal price of 300 ugx for a short call whether at Kampala Link bus station, en route at Mubende or at the bus station in Fort Portal.
- For the best HOT gonja and chicken, buy directly from the women who are grilling (on the way back from the toilet!)
- If you take the afternoon bus from Fort Portal, you may be lucky enough to see the sun set over Lake Wamala. What a wonderful, unexpected sight that was.
- Link have made a lot of investment over the past few years: new buses, redesigned depots and generally helpful staff. The CCTV security system at the Kampala depot is another positive development too.
- Buying bus tickets is a lot easier and more secure since Link introduced a new digital ticketing solution with the KaCyber app. It’s great because it promotes social distancing (avoid the scrum at the booking office!) Book your ticket in advance and pay using mobile money or PayPal. The KaCyber Go App is free to download but not available on all Link bus routes yet. The app is particularly useful now since it is a ‘contactless’ solution (no need to touch money or paper tickets so no need to sanitise your hands!)
- I wrote this story before COVID-19 disorganised us.
- Diary of a Muzungu readers know I regularly take the bus from Kampala to Fort Portal and in October 2020 I took my first bus journey of the pandemic. All travellers have to wear facemasks and everyone’s hands are sprayed with disinfectant. I sat between one empty seat and the aisle. For social distancing purposes, the pattern of vacant seats was repeated throughout the bus.
I once was in this predicament when travelling on a bus between mt Malanji and Blantyre in Malawi. Overcrowded and wedged into my seat between two overly larger ladies, I asked the driver if I could sit amongst the chattel and livestock on the roof rack. ‘mad mazungu’ he must have thought! Anyway, no problem, and much to the other passengers and pedestrians, I continued my ride to my destination.
Oh Paul, I do wish we could see photos of you up on the roof among the chickens What a great image you crazy Muzungu!
I was reading Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari last week. Really made me want to visit Malawi…
A nice read, Charlotte. Summons memories of bus travel in Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Morocco and the 3rd world anywhere. Refreshingly charming and familiar. Thanks!
You must have plenty of stories to match mine, Jon! The subject for a virtual picnic perhaps?
Thanks for dropping by
That was an interesting one and ain’t sure if I can say “happy new year” this time but it’s been a while since last year this is my first read on this blog this year and please if it’s ok please write about the past presidential elections if you got any observations through it, thanks
Hey Rogeth, thanks for dropping by. I have posted a few blogs this year, mainly addressing Covid 19 pandemic in Uganda and travel to Rwanda. I leave the politics to everyone else 🙂