For someone that has never been to Africa like me, the road to Mbale is a memorable drive. I was glued to the window all the way for the 6+ hour trip. There was so much to take in, so much to learn. I took so many pictures and learned many things about Uganda along the way.
The first thing we saw was Lake Victoria. Entebbe is 0.5° from the equator and the lake is massive. I wish we had time to stop to see the lake up close.
Kampala, the capital, is surrounded by favelas-like houses along the main roads, while in the hills in the distance, one can see much nicer houses. The contrast between the downtown buildings and the surrounding poor neighborhoods is dramatic, the few high rise buildings are the ones out of place.
Traffic is very bad in the capital and drivers are worse than those in Naples. Long lines of small busses transport people, animals and all sorts of merchandise. 
Torrential rain flooded the roads, and minutes later the equatorial sun dried everything. September is the rainy season there, and on the way to Mbale it rained a lot.
The seasons are changing around the equator, just as they change in the rest of world. Now it doesn’t rain as much, and the seasons are not on schedule. Apart for the first day, the week I was there it didn’t rain much. On the trip back to Entebbe everything was dry and that was way worse than the torrential rain flooding the streets; roads are unpaved, the traffic is substantial, and the dust is horrible. The air conditioning in the van was not working; when we tried to turn it on, it started spitting out more dust than air. Because of the heat we had the windows open all the way and after 8 hours of this I was covered in red dust, my throat was itchy, my eyes red and my hair a total mess. 
The fronts of houses and shops are 
painted in bright colors with advertisements written on their walls. Our driver told us that companies are supposed to pay people to paint advertisements on houses along the road. Unfortunately the homeowners think they have to pay to get their front walls painted so they don’t ask for money. This is one of the many examples of how the Ugandan are exploited. The ignorance is convenient for some. The more than 40 dialects existing in Uganda prevent people from different villages to communicate with each other, which prevents organizing against corruption.
Corruption, as in many poor countries, is very high. White people’s houses and hotels are constantly threatened by armed robberies. Security guards with big weapons protect private properties. However, the police is not a big help. More than anywhere else, policemen and soldiers here are underpaid. They go months without any salary. Unfortunately, they have to find other ways to survive, and end up becoming corrupted.
Life along a country road
I didn’t expect to see so many people in the street. It looks like everyone lives along major roads. Shops have all their merchandise outside. Every few kilometers there is a village and a market. Food is sold on the street and was offered to us at every stop.
The further you go from Kampala, the smaller and poorer houses get, and merchandise looks cheaper and has less variety. Barefoot kids play without supervision on the streets. There are no sidewalks and car accidents involving pedestrians are the norm.
Close to Mbale the houses become huts. They may look cute if you do not have to live in them with your whole family and some goats. The walls of the huts are made of sticks and mud and are plastered with cow manure. Dry cow manure is also on the floor. The huts are protected by beautiful straw roofs, though!
The landscape
There is little wild in Uganda. This is the only rainforest we saw: a thin stretch 15 Km wide. 
Out of a population of fifty million people, most live in rural areas and most of the land is cultivated. 
Between villages there are large fields of sugarcane, papyrus, rice and tea.
We drove through many fields of sugarcane. However, while the soil is rich and the weather perfect, only multinational Corporations profit from this; there is no infrastructure to support small local businesses growing crops.
A friend of mine asked me if behind this there is Donald Trump. The truckload of sugarcane looks like his wig :).
Needless to say, with all those people around, we did not see any lion, elephant, giraffe, or zebra. Only farm animals.
One of the biggest highlights of the trip was driving by the Nile River at Jinja Lake Victoria, right at its source. Cars are not allowed to stop on the bridge and take photographs. This is all I was able to see. Still, I felt incredible being at the source of civilization.
Photographs of bridges are not allowed for military reasons. Same for train tracks. There are only a few built ages ago by the British. Trains are only used to transport crops by the same international corporations that use the land. I couldn’t resist so I took pictures of this old British railroad. Also, you cannot take pictures of armed guards, policemen or soldiers, which I completely understand. It didn’t cross my mind to take pictures of armed men. I couldn’t even look at them. They were very intimidating.
I then learned that security guards and police often have no bullets in their guns. Either they have no money to buy bullets or their guns are too old to find the right ones. I guess this is not a bad thing.
A big highlight in the road trip was the great cappuccino we got literally in the middle of nowhere, at a Starbucks-like coffee place. It felt so strange and so out of place, but the coffee was excellent.
But really the greatest highlight of the trip were the people, the culture, and the atmosphere. I was really taken by the women’s dresses, the pattern and the colors. But also by the laboriosity and perseverance of the people. Here are my favorite pictures of the Ugandan.
End of part two
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