Wander If You Must: On Both Sides Now: Crossing the Equator

After idling in the empty beaches and trekking through silent jungles of Ssesse Islands, I declared I had enough of the quietness and wanted to see the Equator---this time, I wanted some adventure. So instead of tracing back our uneventful route back to Entebbe from Kalangala Island, we decided to take another course, backpacker’s style. We hopped on a boda-boda from the hotel to Kalangala town where a van bound to Nyendo town---just a few minutes from Masaka where the Equator stands---awaited us.

I knew we made a bad call once I realized the driver was going to try to stuff another unsuspecting traveler to the tangled mess that we were inside that six-seater van that vacuum-packed fifteen of us. Mr. Driver was not only sitting on the lap of another passenger while manning the wheel, but was letting an eccentric old man shift the gears for him as the stick was conveniently positioned between the old chap’s thighs. Next to Grandpa was a typical well-rounded middle-aged woman in her “gomesi” (Ugandan traditional dress) whose body was twisted in such a way that one of her bottoms touched what little space was left of the front seat while the rest of her body hang in the air.

On the second row sat a bosomy young mother with an infant perpetually clutched to her chest. To her left was a scrawny woman in tattered clothes whom, I suspect, looked older than her actual age, cradling a sick-looking child with shifty eyes who kept looking nervously towards the sky, as if praying for angels to deliver him from the misery. Once in a while he tugged at the dirt-adorned collar of the fellow sitting between her mother and me. This guy, oh this guy. I had every reason to think that he was sent by the gods to punish me for massacring a swarm of tse-tse flies the day before along the shores of Lake Victoria in Ssese Palm Beach. This guy’s stench! A mixture of dried sweat, unwashed armpits, rotten meat, and sour milk. I craned my neck towards Dilman for the entire two-hour ordeal to avoid inhaling the breath of death. And Dilman, well, he was basically glued to the car’s door, the only part of his body moving were his eyeballs and mouth. The other four passengers were arranged neatly in the backseat, along with all our luggage.

Sometimes, we have to draw a line between going on an adventure and risking reaching our destinations either in shreds or in one numb piece. Halfway into the trip, I could no longer tell whether the foot I’m stepping on was mine or my seatmate’s. The intimacy was just too much! Squashed as we were inside the small car, we had to keep the windows rolled up to keep the dust out. It didn’t help much that my long white dress was soaked in what seemed to be the sweat or urine of the fellow to my right. I wanted to complain to Dilman but seeing him as miserable as I was, I swallowed my words and prayed for redemption---which thankfully came just as I started feeling puke tickling my throat.

We reached the Luku landing site to catch the Bukakata ferry which would take us to the other side of the lake for free. With a joint sigh of relief, all fourteen of us popped out of the car like popcorn. Pak! Pak! Pak! For the next hour, we were lucky to breathe the fresh lake air---but not for long. We had to squeeze ourselves back into the van to take us to Nyendo town. This time, I took my rightful place on Dilman’s lap, despite his protests. But what could a girl do? I didn’t fancy soaking another liter of sweat and urine from my seatmate. No, thanks. And so the ride to hell started again.

Along the way, a traffic policeman stopped us, and I thought, “Finally, SALVATION!” But to my utter horror, the driver simply stepped out of the car, handshook a few bills into the policeman's palm, and in less than a minute he was back behind the wheels, speeding away along the dirt road. I asked Dilman, “Didn’t that policeman see how overcrowded this car is?” The answer I got? “Welcome to Uganda.”

He went on to tell me that sometimes, on the highways, passengers connive with the drivers to hoodwink traffic policemen. This being a back road, with sparse traffic (we didn’t pass any other car in the one hour we were on this dirt road), the traffic policemen take bribes and turn a blind eye to overloading. But on the highways, they are stricter. However, when the driver sees traffic police up ahead, he stops, and asks some passengers to get off. He will then give these passengers a few coins so they can take boda-bodas to a prearranged location ahead. He will then drive up to the traffic policeman with the legal number of passengers on board, gives the cop a friendly wave, and a few meters ahead finds his extra passengers waiting.

I can’t believe passengers would cooperate in this lawbreaking, but then, I was soon to find out the reason they do it. Travelling in rural Uganda can be frustrating. There are no regular buses. You simply stand at the roadside and hope and pray a car will come along to take you to your destination. Sometimes, the only cars that appear are already full, and you have no option but to connive with the drivers, otherwise you fail to travel.

Upon reaching Nyendo, we took boda-bodas to the highway, where we looked for a normal---read: not overloaded---mini-bus to the Equator. We found a crowd of passengers waiting. The commuter taxis were few, and charging us exorbitant fares. Probably because I was a foreigner or maybe because Uganda is a real capitalist country. Increase in demand leads to automatic increase in prices.

So arrived at the Equator, and what do I see? This.

A damsel waiting for her knight in shining armor.

What more evidence can one possibly have?

Not much of an experience really. There were people offering us a water-draining demonstration, just in case we doubt we’re really at the Equator. It shows water spinning to opposite directions when you're in different (North and South) hemispheres and doesn't spin at all when you're on the equator. So they conduct this “experiment” in exchange for a few shillings, of course, and a fancy certificate saying you’ve crossed the equator. But for me, a photo session was enough proof that I was there, right at the center of the world---zero degrees latitude!