Trip to South Western UgandaPosted by Willadsen Campbell on May 19th, 2021 Trip to South Western Uganda At exactly 6:00 pm with thirteen students and three teachers we set off for an adventurous journey, the best I have ever had in my life. From Kampala, we went through Mpigi, Masaka, Mbarara and Kabale district. This is about 400km. We finally reached Kisoro District which was our destination at 2:00 am. On our way to South Western Uganda, we bought snacks and drinking water which we ate on our way to the destination. We did not encounter so many challenges except that of very deep valleys that was threatening to swallow all of us up at once. The other thing was the pot holed roads in Kisoro district. Kisoro district is one of the districts found in South Western Uganda. This district is mountainous and the roads are built around mountains, therefore to get to a destination you can view in a range of about 2km, it can take you about 8km to reach there physically due to the structure of the roads that are there. There is usually a lot of mist in this region most especially during night and all the valleys seem to be filled with white porridge. One has to be very careful when driving because it's very easy to fall in these valleys as it is easy to drive off the road into them unknowingly because they make the surroundings in front of the car visually unclear. To take you back to my adventure, everybody in the car was quiet and his/her eyes closed at the site of the glorious adventure yet very intimidating except the driver. The people from where we were going could call every now and then trying to know where we had reached exactly since none of us in the car had ever gone where we were going. Tired as we were, we got excited at a glimpse of street lights of a small town far away because we thought that we were left with a few miles only to be disappointed as these lights appeared to move further away from our sight the more we moved around the mountains. After a while, we finally reached where the street lights were and we had a deep thigh of breath, but when we called the hosts, they told us that we still had some more distance to move deep down in the village to reach where we were going. We finally reached the school which was our destination after moving about 45km at about 6:30 am. The school is located near the sub parish called Rubuguri. Here we were warmly welcomed by the head teacher and the stuff at large. At 7:00 am we had our breakfast and then afterwards we were led to tour the school. The school is located in a valley surrounded by hills of about 200m in average. These hills are called Kigezi ranges. They have many terraces on their slopes and these were dug by the local people simply to reduce soil erosion. We were told that these terraces were dug by wives of men who were polygamous. They could assign each of their wives a terrace per day until the whole hill has been terraced completely. Dairy farming is difficult to practice in this area because of the hilly nature of the land and therefore cattle are kept on a small-scale. Generally people in Kisoro practice crop farming as the main economic activity. The crops grown are; Beans, Irish potatoes, Maize, sorghum and cabbage. They also grow tea at a very small-scale. Food in this area is mainly grown for home consumption due to poor transportation to markets due to bad roads. After the short study tour around the school, we were entertained by the pupils of Rubuguri primary school during which we presented a dance also. From the school, we were led to mountain Rugujo where we found the Batwa people. The Batwa people are still primitive up to this day. This is because they have recently been occupying forests which have been reserved by the government. Their houses are made of banana rids and they gather food by hunting and collecting fruits from the forest. These people are also generally small and short. From Rugujo Mountain, we climbed mountain Nyigulu. This was the tallest in all the ranges in the area. Nyigulu range is very steep and difficult to climb and we climbed it by the use of support sticks. At the top of this range, we could clearly see Lake Mutanda. The word "Mutanda" means killing people. We could also see mountain Muhavura. It was named Muhavura by the Rwandese who could use it as a guide to the route back to Rwanda. we were able to see Bwindi impenetrable forest but we were never able to see the gorillas. We went back to the host school and had lunch after which we had interactions with the students from that school. We asked them a lot of questions after which we went to sleep in the morning we set off back to Kampala. Thanks for reading my article. Jobs In UgandaLike it? Share it! |