Day three, well now is when the real hectic stuff begins, woke up at 8am, and took a shower, now I was settled in my new Jinja room. Previous days, I have been looking for where to stay.
In Kirinya Town, there are other comrades of mine, also doing Fieldwork, in total, Jinja is crowded with about 35 Students doing fieldwork for their Rural Field Reports,. Its in this town, at one haji’s rentals that I got a room, a merciful gentleman who was willing to receive payment of one month to utilize one of his rooms.
My new room, has power, water and a matress, well you have to pay for it all. Plus, this area though one of the most feared in Jinja, is quite safe as we stay in a gate and security in this area is priority, at 8pm, you find no open shop in Kirinya, not even a boda boda, not even a moving car.
We left Kirinya at around 10am and left for Kimaka village, we were a group of 7 and we moved from Kirinya until the taxi stage near the main market where we boarded a taxi that we were told was heading to kimaka village, no sooner had we set foot in the taxi than we set off. Well the Kampala fellas were fooled once again this taxi was heading to another village and not kimaka, so we had to get off midway the journey and we were forced to pay full fare ugx 700 yet we hadn’t travelled for a reasonable distance, so we decided to foot to kimaka, a distance of around 1km, we passed by the airstrip and headed for the town centre where the chair man resided, he welcomed us warmly andAccepted us into his home, and accepted us to interview him. After which we had to go to Mpumude Division, a distance of 2km through Kimaka College of high command and some maize panyas.
Now the problem is that Kimaka has no taxis and the Bodas in the area taking you to Mpumude are quite expensive, this weighs heavily on ones pocket. But then again we had to make it.
When we reached Mpumude it was 2pm, but neither the chairman, his deputy nor the secretary were in office, we decided to take our issue to the assistan Town clerk who misunderstood the MAK introductory letter even after reading it 6 times, he thought we had gone for internship placement and he kept emphasizing the fact that unless MAK introduced new stuff, we were doomed as we were not on the right track. After hours of explaining, he understood exactly what we were doing in mpumude, now it was 4pm, hunger pangs were almost commiting suicide and my stomach started talking in tongues, I was/ we were all hangry(yes with an a) that’s a combination of hungry and angry= hangry.
Then we were told to go hack to Mpumude the following day before 11am, now it was 5pm. Meanwhile, the road to Mpumude Division is not only a long one but also a dusty one, I am a dark skinned fellas but I reach Mpumude with a coat of brown, my hair and my clothes too.
We left Mpumude at 5:30pm and headed back to town, transport cost each of us ugx 4000 to get back to town, we went straight to City Market to shop foodstuffs for supper andComing days. We bought irish potatoes in kgs, tomatoes, onions, cabbages and whatnot. Now I had found family at Kirinya, these ladies were willing to cook and they had all it tskes to prepare a decent meal, sauce pans, cooking gas, a match box, knives, wit, and their cooking prowess. Well, my friend Joana was the lead actress in the cooking of today’s supper, that got served alittle to 9pm, yummy though, my stomach had commited suicide countless times.
No real fun thing happened today, even the few jokes we told when we were starving soon evaporated and we simply stared at each other, talk about sweet sadness and just laugh it off.
Let me get to bed if I am to be up by 6am Tomorrow, because a long day deserves a long night, day four will be the best, or so I presume.
