Kasese Goat Project

Last Wednesday I departed Kenya in order to visit a goat project that has been installed to help the local women in southwestern Uganda near the D.R. Congo border. After an early flight from Nairobi to Kampala we departed on a six-hour journey across the Ugandan countryside, a car ride I will not soon forget. The first couple of hours of dodging potholes and slamming into random speed bumps while passing cars on blind hills were entertaining, but this soon grew stressful when night fell and our driver continued to race through dark villages at speeds in excess of 130 kph. I pictured villagers diving out of the way as we came screaming through, but they didn’t even give it a notice as we speed past, apparently unaware that death was just inches away. To them, the more entertaining notion was the mzungu (white man) in the passenger seat. The road turned from pavement to red dirt and back again countless times, sometimes even coming to a dead end with no warning. But apparently you just drive around these things on whatever path is available. No worries! Along the way we traveled through various “highway construction projects” were a lane was closed. Where should we go? Just drive in the other lane! Don’t worry about oncoming traffic. The Ugandans have a sophisticated system of flashing lights and honking horns in order to avoid head on collisions. And there’s no need to lower your speed, you can always just slam on your breaks to approaching cars if the road becomes too narrow, or better yet, don’t slow down and drive on the side of the road. This way you can kick up a lot of dirt as you come fishtailing back onto the road; this really helps add to the ambiance of driving in Eastern Africa. We finally arrived at the hotel, stiff and white knuckled and we managed to only get lost once. We got a few hours sleep and the next morning headed into the foothills to check on the goat project. After about 45 minutes of shooting I was then informed we had to cram back into our vehicle in order to met another contact in Kampala by 4. So if your keeping count, that’s a total of 12 hours of driving with less than one hour of shooting. Along the way back one of the rear tires finally grew tired of slamming into speed bumps at a high rate of speed and decided to blow out. Thankfully there was a spare and a jack so I had us back on the road in less than 10 minutes. We got back to Accra a few minutes late but our subject had apparently decided she couldn’t wait on us any longer and was already out the door. We met her right before she was getting into a cab so I quickly composed a portrait, fired about 5 frames and she was gone. At least it was something. I finally got back to my hotel bed that night around 1100pm just in time to get 2 1/2 hours of sleep before catching a 5am flight to Accra, Ghana.

I LOVE IT