Welcome to Kaabong

Welcome to a different world. Welcome to the breathtakingly beautiful middle of nothing. Welcome to Kaabong.

Kaabong is the “capital” of an eponymous district furthest up north in Karamoja, sometimes called the last frontier of the region – and it’s not difficult to guess why. With the closest asphalted road 6 hours drive away, here the word “remote” acquires a new dimension.

Reaching this place is like a journey back in time (or space, not sure which). First you leave behind the crowded and jammed bustle of Kampala and drive north on a good new tarmac road. Then the good tarmac road turns into a bad tarmac road. And then the tarmac disappears completely, and you drive on, bouncing up and down on a dirt road through a seemingly endless plain occasionally dotted with mud hut villages, for so long that you almost forget that a different world still exists beyond the one you see around. 

Because my world now consists of people walking barefoot, wearing colourful beads and wrapped up in shukas, a Maasai-type sash/blanket. Women carrying yellow jerrycans, big bundles of wood or sacks of charcoal on their heads.

Virtually no cars, with the exception of a few NGO landcruisers or dilapidated local trucks that serve for as a universal transport of everything from persons to bricks. Sharing the road with herds of cows, sheep and goats at all moments: and make no mistake, cows don’t give way (sheep normally do).

No wandering about after sunset. All the water coming either from a borehole, or from the rain. Being woken up by church bell at 6:30 and falling asleep listening only to crickets (and occasionally to the loud neighbours in the guesthouse). Not seeing a white person in weeks. Lifting up your eyes from the computer in your office, and seeing that a goat is sneaking in.

 

But if I’m on probably the most remote end of Karamoja, I’m also on the most beautiful end: from all the towns I’ve visited in this region so far (though classification as “town” might be a bit exaggerated in most of the cases), Kaabong definitely has the most impressive setting and scenery. While most of Karamoja is flat, with expansive views that stretch endlessly ahead and some high mountains bordering the region on the east, Kaabong has peculiar rocky hills or formations scattered everywhere. And I simply love that!

I mean – how about this for a view from in front of the office?

Or this when you’re walking to work…

Or this a few minutes behind your “house”.

The town itself, of course, has nothing. Nothing at all, and I mean that. Kaabong is basically composed of clusters of decrepit single-storey buildings along the main dirt road and a small parallel street, with stalls, two “supermarkets” (which make the smallest neighbourhood shop look like the most glorious shopping mall), a sort of a petrol station (I'll need to take a picture of that!), a vegetable market – oh, and a BANK! The dining-out options consist almost exclusively of a plate of rice and beans (though I’ve heard something about chips) – though on the bright side, I did see a big fridge in one of the two supermarkets, so I’m harbouring hopes for a mildly cool beer if need arises.

Naturally, I miss my friends and my close people, and a bit of company. Yet I’m also (perhaps strangely) very content to be here. I’m enjoying my work (so far at least), and somehow everything seems more real here, in the down-to-basics sort of way, in the essence of things: the sun and the rain, the earth, the harvest, the cows… It’s quite likely that five months down the road I’ll be in a dire need of a dose of superfluous “civilisation”, but for the moment I’m enjoying the novelty of my new world.