A friend who works in Moroto invited me to visit her. Moroto
is situated right in the heart of Karamoja. That, to me, was a problem. I was
scared. Images of tall, skinny men with funny hair flashed in my head. The men
in my head are wrapped in checkered cloths of bright colors. These men are
holding spears. My mind’s eye can see AK47s slung around their shoulders, hanging
down like bats ready to attack an orchard. These men in my mind are not
smiling.
But even with all these images in my mind, I accepted my
friend’s invite so fast that if she was kidding, she had no time to say so. I Lovetravel. She had pushed a squatting man, so to speak. My friend had told me that
there is only one bus that goes to Moroto from Kampala. I thought she was
joking until I reached the bus park too late and the Bus was gone, and I was
told to try again the next day.
I ended up taking a Soroti-bound bus and left Kampala at
6:15am. Seven hours later, I was in Soroti, Here, I took a Taxi and in one
hour, I would be in Moroto chilling with a Beer in one hand and my smart phone
in the other; or so I thought. I boarded a Noah in Soroti, at 2:00pm and did
not reach Moroto until 8:30pm. I could not believe that after a 15-hour road
trip I was still in the same country!
I arrived at my friend’s house at 9:00pm. I was too exhausted
to eat what she had prepared. I do not remember if I greeted her, in fact, all I
wanted to do is to bathe and sleep. I woke up at 8:00am the next day and found
that my friend had a plan. We would eat Breakfast and go climb Mt. Moroto. That
is my kind of stuff! She had aready contacted a guide and a friend to drive us
to the right side of the mountain. At 10:00am we set off.
The dirt road cuts through the plains of Karamoja towards
the foothills of Mt. Moroto. We pass through endless grazing grounds with ripe
Mburara grass that would make an Ankole cow kill itself.
GUNS AND MEN
Every time I see a tall skinny man with funny hair, in a
checkered bright colored cloth, I break a sweat. In my mind, I can see the AK47
hidden in his garb. Will he shoot?
I realize too late that I said that last thought out loud. The
man driving us looked at me from the driving mirror and assures me, there is no
danger whatsoever. “Those days, it was very hard to move outside the town
without risking being shot at,” my friend says. “One time, I was in a Bus
travelling to Kampala and out of the blue, the person right behind me was shot
dead. The bullet had randomly come from the bushes outside.”
And then she adds “One evening our neighbor was cooking
outside the house. She had her baby on her back and she was shot dead. The baby
survived,” she sights. “it 9is horrible things like these that forced the
government to disarm Karamoja.”
The disbarment of Karamoja has not been easy. The gun had
become part of the culture. A Karimanjong man without his gun was incomplete. On
many occasions, karimajong men would engage in shootouts with the soldiers who
were here to disarm them.
A story is told of a soldier who was shot and injured by a
Karimajong man! The story goes that the bleeding soldier left the village left
the village like a defeated man. He did not say a word the village was beginning
to celebrate when, all of a sudden, they saw the injured soldier come back to
the village. He was driving a Mamba. The soldier smoldering with rage was here
for one thing: To pancake the whole village into the ground! Such incidents
disarmed the Karimajong mentally before they eventually handed over their
precious guns.
We soon arrived in Nadiket. It is a beautiful
hilly village at the foothills of Mt. Moroto. We pass by some Manyatas
- huge circles of 10 to 15 huts
each. They are almost shrouded in tall savanna grass and what a serene site it
is. We pass by a catholic church and a seminary college as we slope down the
hill into the community. In the bush nearby, a lady with a baby strapped to her
back, eases herself. Ahead, naked children are playing. We disembark from the
red Pajero and Suubi, the man who gave us a lift, turns back toward Moroto
town.
UP THE MOUNTAIN
Loruk, our guide, is humble enough to let us know, he too,
does not know the way to the Nalikomot waterfalls we are here to see. By now we
can see the water falls three kilometers away, hurtling down a high cliff, as
if from the clouds. It is three Km from us, but even our guide needs a guide.
Climbing a cliff is not easy. You have to take a calculated route lest you find
yourself in a spot, high up the cliff, where you can neither go up nor down
without killing yourself. So Loruk subcontracts a Nadiket boy to guide us and
off we go. The boys are swift of leg. A few minutes after we have set off from
Nadiket, and they have already disappeared into the bushes ahead of us. We cannot
keep up. We cannot even hear them anymore! Scared, we screamed like abandoned
babies for them to realize they have left us behind. They stop and wait.
We are soon in a clearing of arable land. Hills and hills of
fertile land and yet no crop in sight, save fro a few malnourished sorghum and
sunflower gardens here and there. The owner of the farm is a lady in her middle
age. She lives here with what appears to be her grand children, her hut is
small. It does not have a door, so at night, she uses an elaborate system of
thorn technology to protect herself from outsiders. She is sitting in a shade
in her compound. She signals that she must first be paid. I give her sh1,000
and she is happy. We take a picture with her. After that short rest we are back
in a thick bush on a mountainside so steep you want to tag at the bushes for
support. But the Nadiket boys tell us to be careful; there is a mean little hub
called toto’ananya which translates to mother of grass. It is so abrasive, it
will skin you alive.
FINDING WATER
We are now in the forest trudging slowly uphill, walking
with the help of sticks like old women, buy sweating like teenagers. We finally
reached the river the Nalikomot falls are still 100 meters above. The first
instinct is to jump into the water, cool off and regain energy for the last
leg. The water is very cold. By the time we get out of the water, we are so
full of energy we go ahead of the boys. We are only a few mwters to the foot of
the falls. There are routes to maneuver and rocks to climb. But remember we are
drenched like sailors in a storm. So it is hard, And slow. But the destination
is so close. So we climb rocks with all our might, as if the devil himself is
chasing us.
Finally, our efforts pay off. We reach the clearing right at
the foot of the cliff, at the pool into which the water falls. We have not seen
the sun in ages, for we have been in thick bushes . But here it is – bright and
warm. The feeling of the sun’s rays on our skin is magical. The pain of
climbing the mountain is finally behind us, and in our heads, the pain of going
downhill will take care of itself.
We take the plunge into the pool. Under the falls. We are
happy
By: Bruce Amp
