Behind the Wheel: Drive to Hoima

Yesterday we drove from Soroti to Hoima. We started out by leaving late (typical) but then had some not-so-typical experiences. 

Locked Up

First, a back story: I stayed in a room at the Soroti house/office for the past week, and many of our colleagues stayed at a local hotel that had recently been renovated and re-opened.  Now, don’t let that description "renovated" fool you. Outwardly, the place looked nice, but it was not quite finished and had some issues, such as hot water heaters that were not connected (or not working if they were), leaking sinks (as in leaking into the room), and in the case of one of the other fellows, a pond beginning to form under her sink, complete with a frog. Now, prior to deciding to use this hotel, the local staff in Soroti had negotiated a good price, paid half of the entire expense for all guests as a deposit, and then received an invoice for the remaining amount.  However, when it came time to check out and settle the bill (which is usually done the night before you leave, rather than the morning you depart), there was an issue.  Those running the hotel had decided to charge almost twice as much for the rooms. Naturally, the guests protested and refused to pay the exorbitant price.

Now, getting back to our morning departure. After loading up bags at the house/office, we drove over to the hotel to pick up the remaining passengers' bags.  So both our car, which was bound for Hoima, Uganda, and the matatu which would ferry our Kenyan colleagues back to Kakamega, went to the hotel to check out. This hotel, like most hotels I’ve seen in Africa so far, was within a gated compound. So we drove through the gates into the compound to load up and head out. Then the hotel's proprietors, who were still not satisfied because their double-fee had not been paid, locked us into the compound and refused to open the gates to let us out, until we paid the new price. Long story short, we were stuck in the compound for almost an hour while the local staff argued with the hotel owner.  I found it especially funny that people like myself, who had not even been guests of the hotel, were also locked in.  The hotel owner’s rationale was that since people used the hot water heaters (which as I mentioned before didn’t work), they had to pay double, which was of course never communicated when anyone checked in. My first thought was, why aren't we calling the police?  But we are in Africa, and things work a bit differently here.  Plus, there were concerns that involving the police would only further delay our departure due to having to go to the station, fill out paperwork, etc. In the end, given everyone had long drives back home that were already delayed, the overpriced fee was paid and the gate opened so we could get out. The local office staff then planned to follow up to try to get some redress after we, the prisoners, had been freed.

Locked in the Hotel Tikitik

Driving in Africa

As if that start to the day was not exciting enough, I also had my first experience of driving in Africa!  We had 5 people in the car going to Hoima, but only people with drivers licenses are (naturally) allowed to drive the company vehicles. But most of the African staff do not have drivers' licenses, and Peace Corps volunteers are not allowed to drive. So my roommate, one of the other Fellows, and I were the drivers. My roommate took the first leg of the journey, since she has been here longer and driven in Africa before.  I took the second leg, and it was pretty crazy!  The roads, as I have mentioned before, are not in the best shape.  When they are paved, there are often huge chunks missing off of the sides and big potholes in the middle.  Then you have lots of motorcycles (called “bodas” in Uganda), bicycles and pedestrians walking along the sides. I was also driving in the early afternoon so there were TONS of children walking home from school. On top of that, I was driving on the left side of the road for the first time in my life in a vehicle that was like 4 times the size of my Honda Fit. As it turns out, I actually preferred the unpaved roads since you have a lot more space to work with and are not having to dodge the crumbling edge of the road as much.  I only lasted for about an hour and a half or so and then my roommate took the last part of the journey.  It was good practice and helpful to have many backseat drivers giving me advice (which I actually really appreciated). Definitely good preparation for future drives to the field and other local villages. 

Paved road

Unpaved road

And, the beauty of driving in Africa is that you get to see things like the Nile, and patas monkeys and baboons along the way!

View as we drove over the Nile

View after passing over the Nile

Baboons on the road side

Lunch in Masindi
We ended up stopping for lunch in Masindi on the way, which is about an hour and a half or 2 hours outside of Hoima.  As it turns out, the place we stopped was the exact same place I went to lunch when we drove through Masindi when I was in Uganda back in January, which was a fun coincidence.

Menu

Enjoying a pineapple soda while waiting for lunch

It looks like I’ll be in Hoima about 3 weeks, and then I will be going back to Soroti for a bit, and then returning to Hoima, but we’ll see since plans tend to be pretty fluid here.