For a Brief Moment

The early African sun glints off the water casting an eerie reflection back up the hill towards the campsite.

Woken early by the early dawn rays, I make my way down the bank behind the tents and past the showers that look out over the the great expanse of Nile before me. A troop of colobus monkeys plays in the trees overhead, hunting for fruits and insects before the sun

becomes too intense. Keen to absorb what they can, great cormorants are perched on the rocks. Limbs constantly raised at right angles to absorb what they can of the sun, they look eerily like a crucifix. Docile. Unshakable. Calmly accepting of their fate. The silence is all pervading.

Eventually I make it down the hill to the great river bank where the Nile flows past in it's relentless path to the Mediterranean. Outcrops of rock interrupt the river's flow sending sprays of water in all directions and creating miniature waterfalls and rapids. The sheer immensity of the river sends many gallons of white water frothing amongst the rocks. The equatorial location make it a perfect natural spa.

A boy of around eight or nine stands perched up on a rock jutting out of the foaming water. He holds a fishing line that bobs up and down as it is tossed by the waves. A pile of small nile perch lies at his feet. He tells me his name is Bosco.

Like many boys his age, he is a little impatient - pulling up the hook every few minutes and pouting exaggeratedly at me in mock disappointment when nothing is on the line. From time to time I call out to him over the roar of the churning water. Sometimes he replies, mostly he doesn't understand my dirty kiwi accent and just nods and laughs – the default Ugandan response.

After a while he gives up. His brother has joined us, repeatedly zipping down a makeshift slide constructed down the bank. Bosco scrambles along the rocks, tears off his shirt and dives into the crystal water beside the Swimming Own Risk sign. Before long it gets too appealing and I follow him. The water is surprisingly warm for the hour of day.

Beneath the slide is a rocky outcrop that serves as a natural diveboard. I pull myself up and sit next to Bosco's brother - a thin. bony child of around 5 dressed only in loose-fitting, black shorts.

He tells me he doesn't like to swim in the river because the fish bite his toes. So he sits shirtless up on a rocky ledge with his arms wrapped around his knees shivering. I suggest it's actually the cold water he doesn't like. He grins coyly and nods. A number of times he looks ready to dive in but then backs out. Clearly trying to muster the courage to join his brother and the strange mzungu, he shivers in the shade before slowly lowering himself into the water - inch by agonising inch.

I slide into the water beside him and let the current partially drag me away while he talks about his school, his mother and the monkey he caught last week. I bob in the water, floating toward and away from the ledge with the whim of the river's undertow.

Then the current takes me by surprise and I have to spend considerable energy fighting the pull. I'm a little weary by the time I get within an arms stretch of the bank. He offers his leg dangling in the water and I stretch out to take hold. I spy a cheeky look on his face and realise it's coming. Just as I'm about to pull myself up onto the bank he flicks water at me. Partially blinded by the water I flick back and he withdraws, climbing a little further up the bank.

Slowly, step by step, he creeps back to the water and kicks a load of water in my direction. I fling my arms about in the river sending as much as I can in his direction. He shrieks with laughter now and starts pummeling me with splashes.

For a minute we both stand there in freeze-frame repeatedly each shoveling as much water as we can upon the other.

Eventually I dive back into the water, paddle around, and stare back at him expectantly. He's still in two minds; he's rather wet now so the temperature doesn't matter, that just leaves the issue of the nibbling fish.

He again offers his leg as I try and pull myself back up the bank. Towards the end I give a playful tug and he starts to tumble toward the water, beaming. He lowers himself into the churling rapids just past his knees but no further. Even here he looks unsteady and turns to climb back towards the shore.

But the current is strong, he has to work hard to make progress, and the rocks are wet and slippery and he struggles to maintain his footing. He slips and slides. Coming up behind him I try to give him a little momentum against the backpull of the river. 

But then my feet give way on the moss-covered rocks and we both start slipping backwards. I catch his gleaming eye as we slide down the rockface and into the churning water.

The early African sun glints off the water casting an eerie reflection back up the hill towards the campsite.

And for a brief moment there is no war in the North. 

There is no corruption. 

There is no HIV and no AIDS. 

There are just two boys playing in a waterfall. Splashing amongst the turbulent water. Lost in the moment. 

It's Difficult to Tell

The truck is loaded with inflatable rafts, helmets and mzungu -the usual mix of journalists, aid-workers and midlife crises that tend to wash up on Africa's shores. It heads off to where the Nile river emerges from Lake Victoria at a town called Jinja.

A group of mothers are washing their laundry in the river as the truck pulls off the road and heads toward the shoreline. They call to each other and scramble about in a desperate to bid to move their clothes from the path of the oncoming load of Americans, Europeans and other westerners now hurtling toward the airing laundry. There's something slightly obscene about the scene.

Paulo was born in Jinja, grew up in Jinja, and as he puts it, will probably drown in Jinja on the Nile. For the last 20 years he's been out on the river every day, even Christmas. Dressed in plain black shorts and the standard issue military-style helmet, he takes his position in the back of the raft and stairs it assumes the role of navigator/helmsman. He runs the rafters through a series of drills - what to do if you fall out, hit the rocks, and lose a paddle.

Someone asks if there's crocodiles in the river. 'Vegetarian ones', he adds thoughtfully after a while.

And the raft sets off, tossing and turning down a series of Grade 5 rapids that I would certainly not have gone down had I seen the promotional video beforehand. Each rapid is named from a mix of local history and entrepreneurial creativity. There is the Bujagali falls. The ribcage. The Dead Dutchman. The Bad Place.

From time to time, the raft even manages to stay upright.

We breath a sigh of relief at having survived. Chunks of pineapple and glucose biscuits are brought aboard by the support craft. We sit back and let the Nile sweep around us while Paulo entertains with a set of jokes he rote-learned from last years christmas cracker.

The sun is setting when I later bump into Paulo at the hostel's bar. He's dressed less casually now and appears rather different to the adventure-loving . Ordering a round of Nile Special, a local lager brewed at the river source, he begins to recount his career and childhood. He pours his beer into a shotglass and downs it step-wise, one shot at a time.

He whispers tall tales of adventure, waterfalls, close calls and ghastly injuries. He shares tales from his life. How he grew up watching the Bujagali boys, locals highly adept at navigating the rapids, that swim down waterfalls chasing the bets and dares tossed up by passing tourists. He had always wanted to be a rafter.

Night falls and the full moon gleams off the Nile as he waxes lyrical about the glory days of his youth.

He has a good reason, however, for his nostalgia. A hydrodram is nearing completion at the rivermouth. Once it's operational much of the river's white water will be lost. He doesn't know what effect this will have on his livelihood. He's even doubtful about whether Uganda will benefit from the electricity generated from the project. 'It all gets pumped out of here', he explains, 'Kenya, Tanzania, they all get it not Uganda'.

As the night wears on, the stories get taller and taller. I half expect him to tell me he's rafted over Murchison Falls. He hasn't, but apparently but his brother has. Spent three weeks in hospital recovering from the injuries. I nod sympathetically, pretending to believe him.

In the late seventies he even represented Uganda at a whitewater kayaking tournament in Europe. I realise this falls smack in the middle of the Idi Amin years.

Paulo grows sombre at this revelation. He shakes his head. 'Those were bad times', he says, 'things are much better now'. I mention He was in his early twenties when Amin's soldiers came for his father. He hasn't seen him since. He recalls public execution-style killings. The screams of torture victims wafting into the hotel lobby where he worked as a cleaner.

Amin may have been a larger than life figure, serenading international intrigue and charming the western media with charisma but, like all dictatorships, it sounds petty and squalid in the details. People seemed to be killed for looking at the wrong person in the wrong way, for owning a car that a drunk soldier coveted.

'This is why I don't support violence', he says.

Cat Stevens' Peace Train plays softly in the background providing a picturesque backdrop to a discussion on African politics. Paulo is convinced the election will return a landslide for the incumbent Yoweri Museveni.

I finally pop the question I've been dying to all evening. 'If Museveni loses the vote, will he step down?'.

Paulo waits a long time to answer. He hesitates.

Does he not know?

Does he not want to say?

Finally he sits on the fence. 'It's difficult to tell', he admits.

But his face says everything.

'I would still support him though', he adds almost as an afterthought, 'he has brought peace to Uganda'.

Justice and grace.

These two always exist in tension. Too much forgiveness starts to encroach on accountability and vice versa. They become antithetical and I'm not sure where the happy balance lies. Museveni has been in control for coming up thirty years. He has come under increasing scrutiny from the UN for corruption and human rights abuses. His current cabinet features many prominent members of Amin's regime and the probably worse Obote who seceded him. They have eluded justice and continue to dangle their atrocities before everyday Ugandans. And yet they will probably be returned to leadership. Justice hesitates and again resumes her dual with Grace.

Like much in Africa, it's not always clear where the right path lies. The Ugandans, it seems, have chosen to forgive and forget. There will be no compensation for the victims. The perpetrators will not be held to account. No blood will be avenged, there has been enough spilled already. There will be no 9-11 style commemorations, these are first world luxuries. Everyday Africans have far more pressing needs.

And perhaps they are right.

Perhaps the past is irrelevant.

Perhaps justice is disruptive and the living really do owe nothing to the disappeared. Perhaps the stories of these past Ugandans are as irretrievable as their bones, decaying beneath the earth in unmarked tombs.

Perhaps it really is better to leave them undisturbed.

All We Have Are Stories

There was a decided lack of air conditioning in the bar.

A desk fan strapped crudely to the ceiling wafted back and forth over the thronging, sweaty crowd. It was a simple brick construction about the size of the average western living room with a few chairs outside clustered around the iconic, shaded pool table. It was totally crowded with standing room only inside. The climate in Uganda is rather similar to New Zealand's aside from the overwhelming humidity. A thin film of sweat never leaves you, especially in crowded poorly ventilated rooms such as this. Made of brick and a corrugated-iron roof in one of the more run-down Kampala suburbs, it inappropriately sports a hand-painted sign reading 'come in for cold drinks' at the entrance.

Nothing inside was cold, least of all the drinks.

Initially, I had come to see the Uganda – Kenya football match but, it turns out, that match isn't being televised. Instead Tanzania-Morocco thunders across the room with a number of Uganda diehards posted at strategic locations listen to transistor radios listening to their own game and yelling updates over roar of the crowd.

I order a Tusker lager and prepare for the onslaught. One can not, as a mzungu man, be alone for long in Uganda.

An excited bunch of locals quickly summon me over. Jovial in the spirit of African football rivalry they shout at each and the screen. Despite the sweltering mugginess everyone seems to be having a great time. At one point a stocky young, Ugandan man in a Chelsea FC shirt thumps me excitedly on the back. 'This is great', he calls out, 'such Uganda feeling'.

After a while I move into the cooler air of the courtyard, partly to get away from the Uganda feeling.

An middle aged man sporting a business suit takes the seat opposite me and without invitation sits down.

In the football match, officials are arranging the confused players into two lines. They had forgotten to sing the national anthems before the match and so were evidently rectifying their earlier mistake now. The commentators sound surprised. To me it seems perfectly African.

The man leans over and introduces himself as Maj. Gen. So-and-so. I notice the military bars on his shirt but little else gives it away.

'It dishonours God'. He tells me, pointing down at my beer. 'I am good muslim my friend'. He clicks his fingers and a man appears from nowhere, whisking it away and replacing it with a glass of passionfruit juice. I watch bemusedly as my Tusker vanishes amongst the thronging crowd.

'You are good man I can tell, my daughters makes very good wife'. I quickly search for words but he pushes on. 'Very large bossoms' he gestures, 'you will like. You can take your pick'. I pretend to not understand and he eventually takes the hint.

We talk about the usual Ugandan issues of the day. The dreadful traffic in Kampala. The falling Tanzanian shilling. The football. And of course the upcoming elections.

I have noticed this. Despite the ominous legacy of Amin in the west, his notoriety is rather underwhelming in Uganda. Almost as if he never existed. There are no plaques commemorating when his soldiers dragged, no death camps to tour, no killing fields, no souvenir tee-shirts. Even the exhibits in the run-down national museum are strangely silent on this decade, instead displaying traditional huts and stuffed animals.

Time it seems has dampened memories. Earlier in the day I had even passed an electoral billboard with the candidate boldly declaring 'Amin loved me, now Museveni loves me too'.

I ask the General why links to Amin are so lacking.

'You know, we don't have so good records here', he tells me dubiously . 'All we have is stories. But stories are better. They mean more in the end'. I get the feeling he's bluffing and suggest as much.

'Oh they are there but you have to look for them. I can show you a place with over 700 skulls. All from his killings'.

I pause.

'You don't believe me, I can tell?'

I have to admit I'm dubious.

'You, you come with me. I will show you'. He summons a nearby motorcyclist who walks his bike over to where we're sitting. Somewhat taken back I climb on after him.

intersections, horn constantly sounding. We head towards the northern border of the city up towards Luweero, and eventually pull over outside a run down hotel. He beckons me down a narrow grass path past the boarding house that eventually leads into a secluded grassy area that appears to be an exclusive cemetery. It was so remote I almost forgot we were in Kampala.

The path eventually leads to a marbled grave that stands out from amongst the others. At one end a plaque commemorates the war fallen overlying a panelled door with a slightly

hidden handle.

'We both pull', he tells me.

But the panel is either incredibly heavy or rusted over. My contribution was modest but between us we couldn't get it to budge. He calls over a few labourers to help.

They grin and shake hands Uganda-style before getting to business. It takes several of us all pulling to make any headway. After much grunting and heaving, it eventually slides away to reveal a dark cavern. I can barely see inside.

I take out my pocket flashlight and shine it round the interior.

Skulls, lined wall to wall, stare back at eerily from the darkness. I stagger back.

'Excuse me Ssebo', he murmurs and points at his vibrating phone. He wanders off talking in hushed tones. The other men too leave and it's just me and the cave of skulls.

I turn back to the monument and just stare at the 700 skulls, the stories that speak more than many volumes of records.

Part of God’s Family

I meet Ross on a rafting expedition on the Nile.

Originally from Ireland, he now lives in New York and works as a cinematographer. He spends his time flying around the world shooting documentaries for armchair anthropologists.Last month, the upcoming elections in Uganda. Next month, drug lords in Mexico. His stubble is raggy and goes well with the sunburned nose, touche for someone recently returned from Uganda's arid north. His accent is sometimes Irish - sometimes American, and he speaks with the measured cynicism of one who's seen his share of the world's hotspots.

He tells wild tales of the North.

Scarification. Concentration camps. Children firing semi-automatics at passing aid convoys.

Nightly migrations of children from the countryside to the towns to avoid rebel abductions.

Ritual human sacrifice and catholic missionaries administering the sacraments amongst the plunder of cattle-raiding parties.

He tells of the origins of the enigmatic Mr Kony, personally gathered from flesh and blood relatives. Or a version of, I suppose. You can no more accrue true facts about the real Joseph any more than Hitler or Napolean

Especially in Africa.

From all accounts though, Joseph appeared to be a quiet, softly-spoken child from Gulu in Northern Uganda. Never much into sports, he preferred debating and reading and studying the flora and fauna upward of the Nile.When he grew up, he wanted to be a doctor.

But this all changes on his 15th birthday. He becomes full of the Holy Spirit.

He begins to speak in tongues and perform miracles. The sick are healed and the dead raised to life. Villagers come to him to drive the demons from their family members. In a short time he becomes a local celebrity. Amidst the northern tribes long opppressed by the policies from Kampala in the south, he vows to overthrow the current president Musuveni and restore balance to Uganda. The Holy Spirit assures him he cannot fail.

And so the Lord's Resistance Army is born. They announce a singular aim: to overthrow the heathen government and rule Uganda according to the biblical Ten Commandments, that exhaustive list of all that is good and proper.. Only then will Uganda be restored to it's true Christian heritage.

He begins to build his army.

All those that follow his 'Holy Spirit' rules will be divinely protected while they accomplish God's will.They must chant 'James Bond! James Bond!' as they march into battle. There's to be no sheltering behind anthills or termite mounds. Butter must be spread across their foreheads. Soldiers must have a regulation two testicles, no more no less. Bullets won't stop them and bombs will only slow them down.

But the Holy Spirit fails to protect them and they fall in droves to the well-funded and elite trained troops of the government. So LRA soldiers begin to raid local villages. Children as young as 8 are forcibly abducted and forced to fight government troops. For months they are trained in cmobat and prepared for their first mission.

One evening they are sent out and told 'Track down and kill your family and then you will be part of God's family'

This all started in 1988. For over 20 years, Joseph Kony has kept northern Uganda in a virtually constant state of civil war.

The statistics are staggering. Over 5000 boys abducted from families and forced to fight. Over 3000 girls captured as sex slaves. Rewards for valient soldiers.

Joseph Kony is now in the top 5 suspects wanted by the international criminal court for crimes against humanity.

Little is known about his current whereabouts. He used to have bases in southern Sudan, funded by the Sudanese government. Convoys of military supplies would be shipped down to the LRA, virtually passing supplies sent by Uganda to anti-government Sudanese rebels. But in 2004, the governments of Uganda and Sudan held talks and decided it would be simply splendid if they stopped supporting each other's rebels.

So then Mr Kony had nowhere to go. He was in the Congo for a while perhaps. Maybe in Chad. Possibly now in Central African Republic. But he is not forgotten. He seems to be ever present but never present.

And he epitomises the North-South divide I find to keep recurring.

As the Nile cuts Uganda in two geographically, it also separates it socially and politically . With elections looming in the new year, I can't help but feel this is a country still deeply divided.

He complains of a pain in his chest.
Slightly dull and poorly localised. Present for about 5 months off and on. Worse in the evenings. Not affected by food or exercise.

He is dressed smartly but no smarter than the average young Ugandan male, except for मय्बे the shiny black briefcase he held under his arm and placed on the desk.

It could have been any number of things I guess. Heart. Lungs. stomach. Rib cage. But his heart was clear. No history of cough or breathlessness. And

Most probably it was skeletal or trauma. He was after all a farmer, like the vast majority of the population. So I prescribe some anti-inflammatories in the hope it just clears up. Take two panadol and call me in the morning.

'Do you have any medical conditions?', I ask as an afterthought.

'Oh yes, I have diabetes'.

I raise my eyebrows, and get the translator to confirm this. Not the every day thing in these parts.

He was born with it apparently and is working on the family homestead as a 29 year old subsistence labourer.

He flicks open his briefcase and pulls out a school exercise book neatly ruled into columns. With pride he shows me his glucose readings, nicely ordered and filed under mornings, midday, and evenings. He also shows me his insulin schedule with corresponding blood sugar levels before and after each dose. He asks whether it might be better to increase his medium-acting insulin at lunch-time and decrease it in the evenings to give him a bit more energy in the morning. And whether the long-acting one could be increased slightly.

The look on his face is genuine and concerned.

I just sit there stunned.

Somewhere, living in a thatched hut amongst the rats and snakes, with no internet or electricity or running water lives a young man who controls his diabetes better than half of New Zealand.

Uganda is full of surprises.

The Most Famous of All

Visible only as a silhouette flickering from nearby fires, the old man carries a torch in one hand and a long pole in the other. He swings the flashlight beam back and forth across the ground immediately in front of us as we walk along, pole at the ready. Snakes, including the deadly Black Mamba, are common in these parts. We exchange the usual pleasantries: where each other is from, families, life trajectories, weekend football results. Then he asks what brings me to Uganda. When he hears I'm in a mission hospital he shakes his head sorrowfully. 'There are too many mzungu working in our hospitals', he says, 'too many. You can never really understand them you know?'.

I'm finding it difficult to gauge just how responsible colonialism has been for Africa's current problems.

This weekend marks Independence Day and in Kampala little else seems to be talked about. Celebrations and marches abound, newspapers run columns and experts are interviewed on national TV. It is a time for remembrance, both of atrocities past and present.

Some seem to relish the freedom and autonomy of the post-colonial period. Others decry the rampant corruption and hospitals or schools woefully lacking in supplies.

Extreme views abound and calm voices of reason are scarce. Does such a thing even exist? Can a middle-ground be found that acknowledges wrongs done in the past without buying into the Rousseau-ism that seems to dominate a lot of pan-African thought. The idea that before the Europeans came, aboriginal societies were utopias populated with beings wholesome and pure, untainted by corrupt society, living in a land flowing with milk and honey strikes me as naive, bordering on Pollyanna-ish.

But picture this.

The British arrive and find the future Ugandan tribes disparate and living in mutual hostility -the centralised kingdoms based around Kampala south of the Nile and the nomadic pastoral peoples of the north. Not an ideal situation despite it's economic prospects.

But the Germans are actively mining coal from Lake Tanganyika in modern Tanzania. The French are shipping slaves to Arab settlements throughout. And the Belgians are enthusiastically chopping hands off slaves in the Congo. Everyone has plans to expand in Africa. Everyone wants a piece of the cake. Conflict seems inevitable. But the last thing anyone wants is war, they've only just got rid of Napoleon.

So they all have a sit down in Berlin, sip tea and pull out a map. Foaming at the mouth, they get excited as they draw lines across vast plateaus and divvy up Africa's spoils amongst themselves. Congo to the Belgians. Nigeria to the French. Tanzania to the Germans. But they are ignorant to the centuries of history, the wars and rumours of wars, that have ravaged the continent in the past. With the stroke of a fountain pen, tribes are dismembered and split apart. Half become ruled by the British, half by the French.

Likewise, warring factions and mortal enemies having fought violently for decades, suddenly find themselves lumped together as a new nation and told to relish and embrace their new national identity.

Most of East Africa falls to the British. They need to maintain plantation workers in the West Indies. They need to ensure a steady supply of ivory and tea to the motherland. And most importantly they need to stop it falling into French hands.

And so they establish the protectorate of Baganda, ostensibly to protect the Kabaka and his subjects from the threat of European influence. A region not formally under colonial rule but protected from and the threat of native development.

The populous Buganda, representative of the Southern tribes based around Kampala, are a largely centralised chiefdom. They are selected by the British to fill positions in the British administration.

With the outbreak of the world wars, northerners become the Kings African Rifles. Conscripts employed to do their masters bidding in the Europeans wars. Resilient fighters, skilled in bush combat, they are loaded into transports and shipped off. Backtracking the path made my their ancestors a millenia before, they rumble with Rommel in the Egyptian desert.

But there is no mention of their heroics, no formal expression of gratitude for their sacrifice. No inspiring Battle of Britain speeches, no fighting them on the beaches and on the landing grounds and in the fields and streets.

In contrast, the Southerners in Kampala are applauded for their toil and cleverness. Increasingly they administer the British administration, efficiently funneling the regions spoils into the English economy.

The murmurings of discontent grow throughout colonial Africa.

Rumours spread throughout the land. The epoch of European rule is nearing it's end. The Mau mau arise in Kenya starting a domino effect that ripples throughout Africa. Keen to avoid another blood-stained catastrophe like the Maumau or in the Congo, the British make plans for a peaceful transition.

So they turn naturally to the African cultures most like them to pick up the baton and continue in their absence. They have, in a sense, bred them for this role. The Bagandan kabaka and his subjects are the obvious choices to rule over the 'backward' cultures of the North.

But most of this is lost in the optimism of the moment.

In the heyday of Woodstock and baby-booming and free love, the world celebrates the spirit of independence and anti-imperialism. They prepare to cherish peace and love and the noble spirit of the former colonies.

But the seeds of modern Africa have long fallen amongst the weeds. As the Acholi poet Okot p'Bitek put it, 'The teeth may smile, but the heart does not forget'. Artificial boundaries have long become entrenched without true social cohesion. Unbalanced power structures have been crystallised. There are oppressed majorities and privileged minorities throughout Africa. The Baganda and the Acholi. The Lendu and the Hema. The Hutu and the Tsutsi.

Once the Europeans pack up their picnic basket and leave the continent for good, wave after wave of discontents from the North sweep across the Nile and take their revenge on Kampala.

There is Milton Obote.

Alice Lakwena.

Joseph Kony.

There is Idi Amin, perversely the most famous Ugandan of all

Chinese Whispers

There were five of us in the room altogether: a student nurse from Gulu up north, a mother with her 7^th child originally from Nairobi, the mother's mother, and myself. None of us speak the local Lugandan dialect or even share many in common. Still we undertake an entirely meaningful discussion that consists of Swahili on the mother's part, Acholi on the nurses, and gestures on mine.

By pooling our resources we speak excellent Lugandan.

The grandmother appears to be running the show. She is dressed traditionally in a one-piece Gomesi, a brightly coloured silk number that comes down to the floor with curious points over the shoulders. Like a number of things in Uganda, it looks just a touch Indian

The problem, from what I gather, is a previous miscarriage causing ongoing bleeding.

'What gestation did she miscarry at?', I ask, hoping that a touch of sympathy comes across in my exaggerated body language. On the third attempt the message reaches the target and gets passed back along the circle back to me.

'It was full-term.'

I blink. 'You miscarried at full term? As in 40 weeks'

There is more murmuring back and forth down the chain of command.

'Yes, at term but it wasn't a human baby.'

'Oh really'. After 4 weeks in Uganda I'm beyond being surprised. 'What kind of a baby was it?'

There appears to be some confusion. The mother frequently interjects and cuts off her daughter who speaks excitedly back. I, of course, can't understand a word of what is going on and resign myself to sitting back and letting the situation unfold. Eventually a hush falls

over the room. There appears to be a consensus. Esther, the student nurse, turns to me.

'It was a dead dog', she reports matter-of-factly.

I blink.

I shake my head. Something must be lost in translation.

There is more animated conversation. Excited but hushed tones. Dramatic gestures. I hear the word Simba pop up now and again. Finally the message is relayed back.

'No no, it was a dead lion.'

'Oh right. A lion. ' Good to clear this up.

The Chinese whispers pass back along the line to reach the young woman.

I don't have a wealth of experience in obstetrics but I have never actually come across this before. I wonder how many witchdoctors had been consulted before arriving in outpatients today, how many pacts with the devil had been exorcised en route to Kiwoko. Fortunately there is a rather simple solution. I take her file and write two blessed words. Gynaecology Review.

I look forward to the discussion in doctors meeting tomorrow.

The Great Escape

It wasn't a bad trip from Kampala.

Being a Sunday afternoon, the congestion around Nakasero Hill wasn't it's usual height and only one or two detours through run-down squatter blocks were needed before we broke out onto the Northern highway towards Luweero.

We'd made the 30km trip in little over half an hour and all that remained now was to transfer matatus at the Luweero taxipark and find one going into the Kiwoko town centre. I get shown aboard a van that is reportedly heading direct to the hospital. 'How much', I ask the conductor. 'For you, my friend, is 2000'. I'd had enough bartering in the city that weekend so I simply nod and climb aboard.

It's fair to say that matatus, Ugandan minivan-taxis, are not purpose built for comfort but this one seems a little worse than most. The upholstery is completely tattered. The seats lie in various angles and directions, some even point forwards. One isn't fastened to the floor as far as I can tell. The engine cover is partially broken leaving it's entrails open to the world. A wooden plank sits over the handbrake creating a make shift seat. There are two giant cracks in the windscreen. A giant decal over the front reads Luxury Cruiser.

5 of the 9 seats are already taken as I clamber aboard, a good sign as only 3 more need to be filled before we head off. Before long a Boda Boda, a motorbike, pulls up and a 10-year old girl climbs off the back. She's dressed tidily in satin shirt, shorts and sandals. Her hair is shaved short like may Ugandan children, except at the back where braids are just beginning to form. She waves goodbye to her father on the Boda and climbs into the seat next to me.

We try and have a conversation but her poor English and my even worse Lugandan mean we're restricted to just a few common phrases. She carries a plastic bag holding a jumper and a change of clothes. She tells me she's staying with her auntie in Kiwoko village for a few weeks.

'How much?', she asks pointing at my fare. '2000' I reply holding the ready folders in my hand. She laughs cheekily. 'It's only 1000 to Kiwoko'. Precious. You can always trust children to be honest.

We try and make small talk about the locale and the flash floods that are just starting to hit Uganda.

And time drags on.

We sit in silence for at least 20 minutes, staring at the vans and Bodas entering and exiting the park. We gaze with tedium as the shopkeepers sweep their shopfronts and. No on seems to be filling the seats.

She tells me her theories about surviving crocodiles. Her father, it seems, was attacked by one last year and managed to survive with all his limbs after making use of a machete. His machete technique obviously failed to completely convince Nikita by allaccounts and her last few months have been filled with endless research and brainstorming. Swimming away is definitely out. Running won't work either apparently, even on the flat. Fighting is a bit hit and miss, mostly miss. You can go for the eyes but that leaves a lot to chance. Her currently favoured paradigm is to climb a tree. I promise to bear this in mind next time I am chased by a crocodile.

My buttocks start to ache from sitting so long and I shuffle on the seat trying to get comfortable.

A lady knocks on the window selling chunks of meat roasted on a stick. Even from outside the smell of permeates the van. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole but Nikita looks most excited so I buy her one. It's probably beef but could equally be pheasant or goat. Or even elephant really. There is no way to tell. She seems to enjoy it though, sucking off huge lumps and grinning. I start to develop abdominal cramps in sympathy.

And the time still drags.

I find myself mentally counting down the number of seats left to be filled. The one in the

back could have been taken except the lady who was about to sit there was invited to squish into the front alongside myself, Nikita, and another young man who looked just as uncomfortable. But at least there's still two seats in the back for additional passengers.

We'd been in the taxipark well over an hour. The trip itself only takes 15 minutes. Would we be there yet had we walked?

An 'elderly' lady in her 50's climbs in with a chicken tucked under one arm and a Cole bottle full of petrol in the other. The van immediately combines the smell of both with stewed goat from the meat skewer.

A breeze builds up, blowing dust and sand throughout the taxi park and into the van. It scratches the eyes and passengers pull up shirts and scarves to take shelter.

If I close the window, the smell builds. Smell vs. Sand. The smell builds to a nauseating level and the window wins.

Surely we must be leaving soon.

I pull a map of Uganda from my bag and show it to Nikita. She points out places she has family and been on trips. Jinja. Nakaseke. Kampala. Entebbe. Even as far north as Murchison.

By now she's partially couched on a sack of grain and partially on the engine cover.

We could take a Boda, I mention casually to the Nikita. She smiles. It won't be easy to climb over the 2 sacks of grain jammed between us and the door. Not without attracting the attention of the taxi driver who will insist 'we are leaving soon, very soon Ssebo'. But there is another way.

I catch the eye of a Boda driver and motion him around the side. I knock on the window and slide it open.

'How much to Kiwoko?', I ask, 'for me and the girl?' I was starting to become attached to her, and besides, she was saving me a fortune on fares.

'Ok my friend, for you today I will do 3'.

'Ea?, no no 2', I reply holding up the appropriate amount of fingers. Thanks to Nikita, I know exactly what the fare should be, the non-mzungu inflated fare.

Eventually he smiles. 'Ok ok, two to Kiwoko'.

Sweet. We have to be snappy. I slide the window open a bit further and pass him my bag. Then Nikita sits on my lap and pushes her feet out the window. She straightens her body

like a pin and I pass her through the window. The driver helps her clamber onto the back of the bike. Next I stick my own feet through the gap and contort myself through the opening. Smoothly I drop down onto the bike behind the girl and rearrange things to get balance. I check my pockets to make sure I have my camera and phone. The driver casts a look at me. I nod back. 'Tugenda', I call out and give the thumbs up sign.

The Boda Boda bumps towards the road with horn blasting, signalling our presence to other road users.

I cast one final glance back at the Luweero taxi park.

Mostly It Goes

The door opens and in walks another mother with a sick child. Fever on and off for a week. I ask if she's ever had malaria. She bursts out laughing. An error in translation perhaps? It turns out that in Uganda, you get malaria like you get a cold. A mere inconvenience that leaves you feeling rather lousey for a couple of days. Occasionally, though, it kills you and therefore any child with a fever tends to be generously dosed up with anti-malarials. With time, this breeds resistance.

Of course there are WHO guidelines to manage this but, like most UN publications, they tend to be enthusiastically ignored.

After my partially successful attempt to prevent any meaningful surgery occurring at Kiwoko, I had moved to the outpatients clinic. Armed with my trusty Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine I sit in an office in the outpatients department speaking with a steady stream of patients through an interpreter. There's the usual plethora. Chronic pain. Infertility. Skin infections. And of course the young child with a fever.

This case has an additional caveat. Both mother and son are HIV positive.

A cough plus fever in New Zealand generally means either pharyngitis, bronchitis, or pneumonia, each caused by only a handful of bacteria. In Uganda, there is this standard kiwi cocktail plus Tb and a whole host of bizarre parasites and creatures great and small that God saw fit to bless the tropics with. Then you add HIV infection and the list of possibilities becomes exponential.

For any phsycial symptom, HIV widens your list of possible causes. The virus is fussy. It infects a single type of cell. Not brain cells or liver cells or heart cells but a poorly known set of immune cells that don't kill bugs directly. These helper cells are the communicators of the immune system. Giving orders as to what should be attacked and when. With these cells removed by HIV the immune system is thrown into disarray.

All sorts of weird infections emerge. Most of which are virtually never seen in New Zealand where the HIV is low. 0.1% in contrast to Uganda's 29%.

Sitting in my clinic room in the outpatients department, my knowledge of this immune suppression and the consequent tropical infection comes and goes.

Mostly it goes.

The Prisoner of Azkaban

The boy sits strangely apart from his mother. He plops into the chair by my desk leaving her the other at right angles. They don't look at each other much. She talks in rapid staccato tones to the translator. He looks off sullenly in the distance. Very out of place. He's dressed in European clothes that look remarkably clean. He sports newish looking trackpants and a dark tee-short that reads Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in large bright letters. Like all Ugandan children his hair is curly and short. An urban-dweller perhaps? A roamer from Kampala leaving traditional African values for the charms of the West. That would explain the aloofness that seems to permeate the room.

Ugandans, on the whole, seem to be very physical people. Gripping your hand for emphasis while they talk with you. Hugging for just a moment longer than would be considered polite back home. Even the standard handshake has at least three movements plus or minus the thumb tap favoured by the younger generation. Most children his age would be clinging to his mother.

I don't recognise the town listed as his address on the file but then these are woefully unreliable at times. He looks roughly his stated age of 7.

It turns out to be a routine follow up for an incision and drainage at another hospital last week. At least I think that's what the problem is. I'm getting the story second-hand as always, with a nurse interpreter acting as intermediary.

Keen to churn through the waiting room that grows by 10 and shrinks by 1 or 2 a minute , I gesture him to the clinic bed. Suddenly the source of the mother-son disparateness becomes obvious. He shifts nervously and pretends he hasn't heard. The nurse repeats herself. His mother grabs his arm. Suddenly the boy shrieks with terror. Not even the hard-boiled sweets I had picked up from a street vendor in Kampala could console him. He flings open the door of the clinic and dashes howling into the hospital grounds.

Moving to the door I can just make out Harry Potter disappearing behind the motorbike shed. The Prisoner of Azkaban darts in and out of the parked boda bodas.

Perhaps the experience at the previous hospital had been traumatic?

I guess pain and fear need no interpreter