By Stefano
In preparation for our November – December Singing Wells Project covering Northern Uganda, Patrick and Steve traveled to northern Uganda via Kampala on a fact finding mission to map out the region and identify performing groups.
The recce was aimed at getting information on the following:
1.Logistics
Air travel
Road Travel and state of the roads
Accommodation
2.Support
Fixers & Cultural Partners
3.Music Performers
Groups
Locations
Singing Wells is a partnership project by Ketebul Music and Abubilla Music that aims at archiving and documenting the rich musical traditions from eastern Africa
Nairobi
Our journey begun early Monday morning with a taxi ride to JKIA. Our flight was scheduled for take off at 7.55am meaning we had to be at the airport at 6.30am.
We arrive at the airport at 6.15am and we are lining up at the check in counters by 6.30am. Due to overbooking and much to our disappointment and inconvenience, we are transferred to a later flight set to take off at 12.55pm.
We spend the entire morning at the airport trying our best to drown our disappointment in coffee and the day’s newspaper.
Entebbe
Finally after a smooth flight (Patrick is not a fun of flying so he might say different) we arrived at Entebbe Airport at 2.10pm. After clearing with customs, which took no time at all, we find Jan’s driver was waiting for us outside the arrivals area.
A short 15minutes drive later and we are seated with Jan at the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe having refreshments and a brief meeting with Jan before proceeding to Kampala. Although this was our first time to meet face to face, this was not our first encounter with Jan.
Jan Willem is the manager of the Airport Guesthouse in Entebbe as well as the Travelers Resort in Kisoro where we had been to in 2011 during our work with the Batwa. He had been one of our logistical partners on the ground giving us information with regards to accommodation and transportation.
We were also lucky that some of the staff at the Guesthouse were very helpful with information about the regions we intended to cover during our visit.
Meeting with Jan, Mary, Rose, Charles and Dnalega Bonnars
From our meeting with Jan we gathered the following;
1.Roads
The roads heading north are in poor state. Jan recommends using land cruiser vehicles for our trip.
There is a new road from Gulu to Soroti but it is rarely used
Drive time from Kampala to Gulu approx 6hrs
Drive time from Gulu to Pakwach approx 4hrs