On the road to find out!

View Larger Map

Hey everyone!

So I have been trying to upload photos for AGES! Basically, what I can provide you with is this map, depicting the route from Kampala to Moroto. It takes one crazy long day, or 2 shorter days of travel to reach Karamoja. Karamoja is a unique place in Uganda. It is a wide spanse of land that is reserved by the government for the pastoralists of this region. Cattle herding used to be the primary livelihood in the region but now the cattle are sequestered in what are known as kraals-- or community lots. This is a very contentious issue, and had a lot to do with politics/violence/and a 2 year drought. Anyways, you go off the tarmac road for a good while and then you see a tree with a little white line. This, as our driver told me, marks where Karamoja land begins! And sure enough, the land changed! The grass was wild, you could see forever over the fields, and there was little to no buildings. Because the area is historically nomadic, and the environment is semi-arid, there is minimal agriculture. Although this is the dry season (until March) the region has been experiencing weather changes. It rained all of last week! This has quite serious implications for the primary mode of transportation for goods-vehicles! Because the roads were bad, there were a lot of buses with travelers from Kampala or elsewhere and lorries with goods getting stuck. Luckily we outmaneuvered in the land cruiser, but it highlighted to me one of the main challenges I will face this year while living in the region--lack of easy access to goods and travel! Slowly but surely as each Uganda town became a distant fleck in our rearview mirror I would make a mental checklist of what was no longer available: there goes toilet paper, last stop for chocolate, gas for the stove cooker is 5 hours away, last junction for maize, few cold sodas from here. You get the idea. The downside of a long drive is the slow realization that with each wheel rotation, I am inching towards  no-man's land.

But, of course, there are people in Moroto! And, as I learned over the week, there are some small markets (perhaps I will take a camera one day- but it feels voyeuristic for now) and ways that people are eeking out a life in this hard land. My house is nice. Very spacious, and I like the landlord and her family. She is single, and her and her brothers run the place. Together they have 15 dependents they are responsible for their care and schooling. The first 4 days there was no electricity or bulbs. Now they have brought my bulbs (stuck in the rains from Kampala) and I have solar energy and sometimes from 7-9 pm the government energy.

As for food, I have a gas stove I was encouraged to buy. It has helped immensely!! But I had to get over my fear of a giant tank of gas in my storage room (and also bouncing along the dirt roads for 4 hours!)

The tough(est?) part has been the lack of internet- which hopefully is a bit better now that we are sharing an office that has wi-fi! However, the phones and our remote internet barely work. So, skyping and chatting has been difficult.

More from me later. . . I have to take a lunch break :) I am trying to pretend that I am excited about the pumpkin and beans I made last night . . .

Rain storm in the distance

There are more mountains where I am living, but this is the entrance to Karamoja