Abseiling down Sipi Falls
As a Ugandan friend said today, “no one here is in a hurry.” I really thought I had adjusted to “Africa time.” I bring a book with me everywhere I go… meetings, lunch plans, taxi rides, weekend trips. But no experience better explains this cultural difference better than my and Alice’s weekend trip to Sipi Falls.
7:15 am – Buy tickets for 8:00 am Post Bus
7:50 am – Post Bus arrives
8:12 am – Post Bus departs
Not Bad. For “Africa time.” The bus trip began smoothly, but somehow this 4-5 hour trip turned into a 8 ½ hour adventure? Well, Ugandans may move at a slower pace, but they still know how to multi-task. Never was this more true than with the Post Bus. How were we supposed to know that this bus literally delivers the mail to every post office between Kampala and Mbale. Yes, we stopped at each and every post office along the main road. So once we realized we were riding around in giant mail truck, I decided to get comfortable and take in the many interesting things the post bus transported – a list that includes post mail, people, chickens, and human transplant organs. Yes chickens and human organs. At one stop a women sat in the empty seat beside me and placed a bag at her feet. Then the bad started to move and I realized she was carrying around a live chicken. Then there was the cooler with the human organs that had a paper attached that read “ transport immediately.” If only in America, immediately meant within 5 hours (give or take).
And this experience would not have been complete without the people. Catherine, who sat next to me for the last hour of the ride and talked about family, work, religion, and travels. She told me the name of each town as we passed through and how far we were from our destination. She told me how we choose the safest bus with the least number of accidents (at least we had that going for us). And, when we finally arrived in Mbale, she walked Alice and I to a taxi, made sure the driver spoke English, and gave him a stern speech (in Lugandan) about transporting us safely. Thanks to Catherine we arrived safely, in time for a fresh cooked dinner; we woke up the next morning for an amazing day of abseiling down the 100m high Sipi Falls and then climbing back up the waterfalls. The good news is the ride home was a quick four hours… complete with many more chickens.
