Gulu Town!

 

About thirty hours after arriving back in Kampala from Rwanda I was on a bus yet again. This time the destination was Gulu, a town in northern Uganda. I first heard of Gulu when I went to a screening of a documentary done by the organization Invisible Children on the war in Gulu sometime this past school year.

Gulu (or Gulu Town as the locals call it) has come a long way since the documentary was filmed and I really enjoyed spending the weekend there with my friends.

I went with another AIM volunteer, Carolyn and two of our Ugandan friends, Tony and Jacob. Tony and Jacob were both in the Invisible Children documentary and are still working closely with Invisible Children. They both grew up in Gulu and are now going to University in Kampala. Carolyn met Tony while he was on tour with Invisible Children in Texas just a few weeks before she came to Uganda. I met him here at the Fourth of July Party that Carolyn invited us both to.

We spent most of the day Saturday traveling; leaving Kampala at eleven and arriving around five. As soon as we were off the bus we headed right for the best coffee shop in Gulu; the Coffee Hut. Tony and I were lucky enough to meet the owner of the Coffee Hut when he was in Kampala a few weeks ago with a friend of mine from Spring Arbor. Since we knew the owner we spent a lot of time there throughout the weekend. After having some tea and using the free internet Tony took us to the guesthouse Carolyn and I would be staying at for the weekend. We settled into the room then went to the lobby area with a friend of Tony’s, Innocent, and an Invisible Children volunteer from London, Lizzy. Carolyn and I attempted to teach the rest of the crew how to play phase ten and we ended up playing for most of the evening.

Jacob and his girlfriend who was also with us in Gulu eventually came by and we decided it was time to eat. We walked through Gulu (that’s something nice about Gulu…you don’t have to take bodas everywhere!) to a little hole in the wall restaurant that Jacob really likes. It took me about two seconds of looking at the menu to realize I had no idea what anything was! The different tribes of Uganda all have different foods they eat. I’ve gotten used to Matoke, Rice, Beans, Kasava, and other things common in Kampala but that wasn’t on the menu in Gulu! We had Tony go through the menu with us to explain everything and I ended up ordering “chicken pasted and rice”. It was chicken in g-nut and simsim sauce. Innocent had Lapena which is made of peas and kind of looks like pea soup and Tony had something called Boo (pronounced Boa) which was some sort of greens made into a creamy sauce. I liked the Lapena when I tried it but I was definitely not a fan of the Boo!  

 

After dinner we had some friendly arm wrestling competitions with the guys at the table next to us. I’m not sure how it started but it sure was fun to watch!

Sunday Tony took Carolyn. Lizzy and me to his village where his family lives. It’s called Laleah and isn’t too far outside Gulu. We spent a large part of the afternoon just hanging out at Tony’s house. We listened to lots of great Ugandan music and just had a good time. Everyone in Gulu has an Acholi name in addition to their given name so after arriving Tony’s aunt came in and wanted to give Carolyn, Lizzy, and me each an Acholi name. I was given the name Lakica (pronounced Lakisa or Lakicha depending on who you’re talking to!) which means having grace. For the rest of the weekend I was Lakica to Tony’s family. Lunch was served sometime in the afternoon; rice, posho, beans, and boo that actually tasted good!

After we ate we spent the rest of the time with all of his cousins; there were somewhere between fifteen and twenty of them!  They were all really friendly and by the time we left I had about a thousand pictures of them on my camera! At one point we even had a dance party with the kids; Tony brought his laptop outside and played Waka Waka, Ashawo, and some other songs that the kids would know. It was absolutely adorable watching them dance!

We had dinner at the coffee hut later in the evening and to our surprise it was on the house!

On Monday Tony took Carolyn and me to the Invisible Children offices for a tour. We were able to learn about the many different programs that Invisible Children is working on and meet a lot of the people who work there. One of the programs sponsored by IC is called mend. It’s a group of 17 girls who were formerly abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army. They are employed by IC to make bags which are sold online and in the U.S. during IC tours. After visiting the main offices we headed across town to the mend offices. We weren’t fortunate enough to meet the women who make the bags because they were all in a meeting while we were there but we did get a tour of the place and were able to buy some of the bags. One of the cool things about the mend program is that it provides a lifelong career for the women involved. Rather than teaching them tailoring skills and sending them on their way, mend provides steady work for them. The bags are all really well made and are super cool…if you’re interested in purchasing one you can find them at .

Believe it or not we had dinner at the coffee hut again; the menu there is just too good! On our way back to the guesthouse one of the corners we passed had a huge puddle and there were a bunch of frogs in it. We couldn’t see the frogs because it was dark out but they were SO loud! I couldn’t get over how loud they were so I convinced Tony to use his light to find one because I figured if it was that loud it must be a massive frog.

Wrong.

 It was a very normal sized frog. It was still really cool to see though because we could watch their throat bubble up really huge every time they made the noise! The rest of the way back to the guesthouse Tony was trying to imitate the frogs; Carolyn and I couldn’t stop laughing because he didn’t sound like a frog at all….he just sounded like he was growling or something!

Our bus left at seven on Tuesday so we were up before the sun.  I was lucky and got a window seat so I was able to sleep most of the morning. We made it back to Kampala before one and we all headed our separate ways.

I’m really grateful to Tony for taking such good care of Carolyn and me and for showing us what life is like in Gulu Town!