lobalangit/geremech

one morning stephen and i woke up in timu forest. we drank coffee with terrill, and rode down to kaabong, one of the largest towns in the area. once the bank got their generator up, i withdrew some money to provide for the remainder of my expenses during the course of the trip, and we rode back to karenga with father raphael, the priest who is in charge of karenga and lobalangit subcounties.

reaching karenga, we threw our bags in our rooms, packed daypacks, and started walking toward lobalangit.

we must have been given a ride pretty early on. we were dropped off at pire, about three or four miles from lobalangit trading center, where we would track down komol.

we were surrounded by a gawking group. lobalangit was well populated that day. we waited while the lc3 (like a mayor) sent a motorcycle for komol. 45 minutes later, the motorcycle returned, komol sitting smugly behind the driver.

there's very little traffic on the road between pire and lobalangit--most traffic passing through pire is between kitgum and karenga. the lobalangit road is just a small offshoot of this road.

it was late to be starting back, so we cut a brisk pace. it started raining. a student from makerere university who had some business in lobalangit walked with us. we occasionally chatter.

it rained harder.

thunder. thunder thunder. thunder. close thunder.

more rain. finally, the ugandan said 'we must wait here in this hut.' we strolled by somebody's home to an open-walled cooking hut. the owner cooked over an open fire. she glanced at us, and then went back to her work. at a stopping point, she wordlessly fetched a crude bench for us.

torrents. deafening thunder. small floodwaters.

we would have been quite wet had we not sheltered. we were getting wet enough as it was that the lady cooking over the fire told us to go into her home. she stayed in the cooking hut to finish the meal. 45 minutes later, the rain had abated enough for us to return to the road.

we waited in pire for a ride. we had told father raphael that we would generally try not to walk back from lobalangit. but we realized that there was little chance another car was coming through before dark, and that if we hurried, we could make it. we set off at a brisk pace. we walked the 8 or 9 miles back in a little over two and a half hours. we were tired.













there's a town in karamoja called geremech. it's a small town. it's about 3 miles or so northeast of karenga. it's at the foot of a sizable rock formation/small mountain protruding from the floor of the kidepo valley, which is populated by lions and leopards and elephants and stuff. they don't often find their way to geremech.

the euro cup was an important part of the summer for stephen and me. the public showing of euro cup matches had waned in the last few rounds of the tournament back in karenga (i can't imagine that the admission charged nearly offset the cost of the petrol for running the generator, but stephen and i had heard of a bar at the foot of the rock that was showing the games. the night before the final match (the night after our exhausting travels to and from timu, karenga, and lobalangit), we decided shortly before sunset to walk to geremech to investigate the situation.

we saw no lions. sad face.











the next day, komol came. i met his daughter. he posed stoically. he told me stories; i understand them better now than i did then.