Echatutu Women's Selfhelp Group

EWAN’S SOROTI VISIT

“Today was another remarkable one, arriving at the bus station was on its own a culture shock, the street full of people, and guys who I initially thought were looking to grab me and steer me on to their buses - only  some of them were, the others were bus park staff keen to direct me the right way. Robert had already bagged seats, but more and more people flooded on wielding big bags, bigger boxes and packets, sacks of charcoal [the latter thank goodness got stowed below], while other people fought their way over the large items blocking the gangway trying to sell anything – toothpaste, roasted chicken legs, biros, a computer screen, boiled eggs, bunches of bananas, plus all kinds of cold drinks.

“We set off at10.30 and reached Soroti about 6pm, with a couple of stops for food buying and ‘short call’ ie short call of nature. On the way was all human life, lots of thatched mud huts, rice and sugar cane fields, banana plants, our driver being stopped by the traffic police for exceeding his driving hours, remarkably large ladies semi-battering their way off at their stops, solemn astonished children who peeked at me and retreated quickly.

“For the first hour one of the three bus conductors gave us a non-stop sermon on our duty to bow down to Jesus, and prayed on us fulsomely, then preyed on the weakest present by getting money out of them!  On the journey, once The Pastor as he introduced himself had stopped preaching, I got to know much more about Robert and his work.

“After visiting the Echatutu Women’s Group Robert and I went on a mile or so to his home village where an American group had built a community room. The official cheerleader for the women's group had bicycled like mad to get there ahead of us, and welcomed us with more Red Indian whooping and a while flag drawn over our car.

“We were welcomed in song by two local musicians [taught by Robert] and a group of singing kids, then Robert's dad and then his stepmum came in, she was leading some of the women's group and some others singing me a welcome. They presented me with a ceremonial carved walking stick.

“Now, I had worried going in that I had brought no kind of present at all, but I'd seen that Robert Senior, aged 80 years, walked with a short unhandled stick. So I presented him with my metal folding one, since I had a wooden one to take away. “Great astonishment and appeciation of this remarkable object, which would raise Robert's dad's status considerably. He had been a schoolteacher, and both sides in the rebel conflict had accused him of supporting the other side. He gradually dragged up various rusty English phrases. We got on very well. 

“We dashed back to Soroti town to catch the last bus back to Kampala, due I think to leave about 1.30pm. When it finally filled enough at around 2.20pm a large lady passenger suddenly jumped up and ran out, and we waited 10 minutes till she returned, having gone home to change her clothes. She apologised to those of us around her.

"The bus floor was carpented with old cardboard boxes, and the two portions of the sliding window beside us had each had a corner broken off, so that a neat triangular hole aimed a stream of pleasant cold air at us all the way.

"There seemed to be a driver, driver's assistant and three or four conductor staff. There were five or six police checkpoints on the way, each checking on different things. The next one would check for overloading, and we were overloaded. So three men got off. After the checkpoint the bus stopped, and the three got on again. They had hopped a taxi to bypass the police. The whole bus was most amused. The bus staff kept up a nonstop stream of chat and banter all the way till we got into Kampala at about 10.40 pm.

"On the bus an old gent had asked me where I was from, then asserted he had been in UK in 1843, in Manchester and Littlehampton studying to be a roads engineer. More likely date 1953 I'd say."

Ewan McVicar