Margic on Mt. Moroto

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