The Akamba – aka The Deathtrap

Its been an eventful couple of days. I was feeling a bit restless because things were moving very slowly. We were suppossed to leave Kampala on monday in the morning, then at noon, then we were told that the truck wasnt going to be fixed until the evening, and that we should just leave the next day. I was hot, sweaty and had stuffed myself so full of guacamole and chips that i was ready to hunt down the mechanic and strangle him. Lucky for him and me, (the idea of being in a Ugandan prison isnt appealing) we did get the truck and left around 3pm.

 I spent the next day atthe TASO centre in Mbale with support groups for discordent couples with HIV(one spouse is infected, but the other isn’t), with mothers who are infected but whose babies aren’t, and newly tested individuals who are receiving their first counselling session. I also toured the facility which serves the community and provides some of the ‘clients’ with support and medication but also as a place of refuge. There is a place for the women to do crafts and the woman who was showing me around said that many people like to come and to talk with others that are infected, and that discussion is some of the best therapy. In a country where HIV is still taboo I understand, especially because in some communities if you are found to be positive, your picture is posted with a warning in the local newspaper.

I also had the opportunity to speak with some people who are working in Uganda with TASO in a program called TEACH which brings in individuals from other HIV/AIDS organisations in other African countries to learn from the success that TASO has had in Uganda. There were social workers, doctors, IT specialists as well as a government advisor. The one guy I spoke to that is an advisor, works as an advisor for HIV/AIDS for the government of Ghana. He was recently threatened by a minister in the government to stop speaking out about the crisis and the inaction of the government or else he would be killed. I was wide-eyed and open mouthed, while the others from Tanzania, Ghana, and Ethiopia nodded in understanding.

About the Akamba though… it is a bus that I took from Mbale to Nairobi yesterday. It was suppossed to leave at 5 to get into Nairobi at 6am. I wasnt worried, because from the outside they looked pretty nice compared to alot of the Matatus or taxis. I should ahve known that it wasnt a good idea when i found out that the overnight trip into Kenya was going to cost $7 Canadian. The only thing i could come up with was that our particular bus had been salvaged from a scrap yard and the interior was a collection of old seats and luggage racks from old long retired busses. We left at 615, with a strange thick brown liquid dripping on the seat in front of me from the luggage racks ahead. It was then that i noticed on the headrest of my chair that i had some liquid of my own, but it was of the cloudy grey variety. It also didn’t make me feel any better that I had torn the skin off of my right midle finger on the grimy luggage rack trying to stuff my bag overhead. Thank god i got a tetanus shot. Anyway, we got moving, with me sitting precariously between the dripping brown liquid in front and the goo behind me, clutching my bleeding finger hoping that the 13 hour journey would miraculously be reduced by 95%. it wasn’t. There is a lot more that happened on thatr particular journey, such as the bus driving away from me at the border and me running full out to catch it, everyone being taken out of the bus by the police and put into two lines in front of the bus as we were searched and questioned by guys with rifles, but i have to go. Ill write more soon.