Snaps and Haikus

We are currently in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, after a 30 hour bus ride. . . more on that later. For now, we are writing about the eight days we spent in Eastern Uganda near the Kenyan border, including three nights in Sipi, five days backpacking on Mt. Elgon, and a night in Mbale.

Backpacking allows one to settle into a place, live with rhythm, heighten the senses, and suffer miserable discomfort. Five days in the wilderness left us with calm spirits, remarkable images, and a mad desire for calories. We gazed at a distant peak covered in clouds, we slowly and gruelingly ascended, we slept in a cave as bats plopped guano on our tent, we weathered inclement rain, we brewed coffee and tea, we devoured food fit only for the hungry, we had interesting conversations in smokey huts, we labored under a thin oxygen supply, we rediscovered the endless farm that is Uganda, and, finally, we gazed back at a distant peak covered in clouds.

A narrative of a backpacking trip would be fine ennui; the feeling of backpacking is better represented in images. The following are images in pictures and haikus. The pictures represent scenes and landscapes in moments that a finger happened upon the camera trigger. The haikus depict little observations that stuck to our minds, which we then stuffed into the 5-7-5 syllable haiku format. We amused ourselves by writing them on a windy afternoon in our tent at Mude Cave. We had to reduce the quality on the pictures by 90% to get them to upload. We had to reduce the quality of the haikus to make them digestable for the public.

-C and G

Matatu: Jinja to Sipi

Boy sitting on man,
brother sitting on sister,
four people; one seat.

Sipi Farm Girl

Girl walks goat through town
rope tied to goat's leg stretches
across red mud road.

Below Sipi Falls

Red winged starling tied
to a string, last gasp flapping.
The boy shows it off.

Lunch in Sipi

A local hotel:
mud walls, dirt floors, three benches.
We eat rice and beans.

Trekking Mt. Elgon

Heavy backpack, hunched
head down, watching feet step on
tough tiny flowers.

Night in Tutum Cave

Waterfall slapping
on left. Crazy bats squeaking
on right. Fall asleep.

Supper on the mountain

My legs like basalt,
heavy with lactic acid.
Squat down and eat gruel.

Wagagai Peak

The everlasting
flowers bloom on the extinct
volcano Elgon.

Morning Alarm

"Cah!" - We from the tent
burst, to scare Raven from food.
He makes a poor thief.

While boiling afternoon tea

Why are these little
white butterflies falling from
above? Are they dead?

A smoky conversation with Beca at the fire

In Kapchorwa, the
boys are circumcised at age
18. They can't cry.

Descending Elgon

Enter a new world:
"Wahhhh!" "Mooooo!" "Cock a doodle doo!"
Civilization.

A conversation in Mbale about polygamy

The first daughter of
wife number one vows to us
never to marry.