From houses of worship, to shacks in the slum, to my host’s home in the outskirts, to the snazzy mall in the middle of the city, I had explored Kampala.
Now it was time to get to my next city, Jinja.
A hop, skip, and a leap away from Kampala, I got on a dalla dalla (public transport van) and headed on over.
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Jinja is a city of 70-80,00 people. There’s a lot of poverty; there’s a lot of beauty. The Nile River starts here. Young travelers come to raft the Nile’s whitewater nearby. Other Westerners are in town for development work and were seen at the coffee shops and more expensive restaurants. These locations are dotted within the rest off Jinja, a small third world city of which you’ll now see how the people live.
We start on the way from Kampala and Jinja:
Also on the way, stops featured the company of streetside sales folks.
Getting into Jinja, my motorcycle taxi dropped me off here:
Then I walked about its downtown.
A new market was under construction:
Until it’s ready, old markets will have to do.
Watch downtown come alive:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp-sMvakEfU]
To the old market:
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Footage of market:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=617wRB5cw1Q]
Getting back outside:
Here’s what I ate for lunch:
Getting my food:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6MYHTgrdBM&w=560&h=315]
Wandering away from town, I stumbled upon a housing park.
These homes aren’t much, yet infinitely better than the situation I encountered at night.
Within the dark of Jinja presented perhaps its darkest side.
I don’t know where these boys came from, as I didn’t notice them all day. But at night they come out when the sidewalks are empty, and lay their heads to rest with bodies wrapped in rice sacks.
My host in Mwanza, Tanzania worked with local runaway and homeless youth. We even hear about the problem in the US from time to time. Young people in bad domestic situations gravitate toward urban areas no matter where you are in the world. I suppose this is because they stand a better chance living off the pity of strangers.
No place in the world is without its problems of broken families and lost youth. But in an economically undeveloped place like Uganda, the problem is more pronounced.
I ended the day with some more street food.
***
My stop in Jinja wasn’t just to check out the lives of the people here. I had made a connection eight months earlier in Minneapolis that I was to fulfill the following day.
A father, his sons, and their fish farming operation at the headwaters of the Nile.