Undo

Propelling itself off the land at Nakiwoko in Entebbe, the ship reverses rather fast…sauntering in quite a swing…leaving a wake that turns onto itself…unveiling a formy greenness that spoils the water as we pass on...The land looks rather vulnerable…some piece hanging like it would topple into the water any moment carrying along it people, vehicles, boats and wooden shacks…or is it us that look vulnerable, to the people standing waving at us from the land anxiously wishing we don't disappear around the next bend if that is what it can be in water terms.

A few of us stand at the Poopdeck, looking awe-lost just like the people on the bank, thinking of nothing discernable in mathematical terms or rather trying to avoid the urge to wave back at them. The people at the landing site had earlier on taken a tour of the ship in their ‘Sunday-best’ summoning the photographer to take their pictures in peculiar poses on deck…sleeping on the cushioned seats, even talking on their mobile phones while making wild gestures on Kalangala’s first ship.

this is it man

For something I thought would slug along the waters, the fast drift we were making was promising. But that doesn’t mean that Entebbe was lost to sight immediately. In fact it took the whole of two hours before we could look where Entebbe was and see a perfect line separating the water from the cloud.

As it is unconvincing that we really had started our journey at that speck of white in a green extension of the water afar, I think it too was strange for the people at the shore looking concertedly at the ship suddenly imagining we having sunk at the extreme end of the line of their view…right where they could see…was the end of the world.

At this point, it became evident that I stop looking back to the reference point of my emergence, to explore something other in these waters, having lost it all…to some aspect of nature…the horizon I had religiously referred to to determine my fate…being a collection of wild wave after another offering no comfort when…looking, trying to perceive the existence of a lost piece of existence, I ended up looking at a green embrace like canvas wafting in an endless gesture, fluttering in a slow afternoon wind…ending as a straight lining at the edge of where the water and cloud discreetly met. Marking the beginning of my imagination, replicated on the faces of all that were pondering the distance being lost, making the flat earth theory more pronounced.

Kalangala ship… There is the first class section no one sits in until the ship is set on its journey. The second-class section everyone crowds and the Poop deck only the brave hang on. The first class costs 7,000 bucks and the Second class 5,000. No one pays for the first class section, even the Whites--so at first, we were all crammed in a hot cabin on wooden benches-it seemed like the AC was redistributing warm air to our disappointment… the cabin round windows were pale with steamy breath…some people looked suspicious…and I couldn’t help wandering who was consuming more oxygen or emitting all that steamy old breath…I didn’t finish the thought wandering off to hang at the poop deck that offered a good view and fresh air. Later, the fares having been paid, I went in and found all the people plus the grubby ones that had congested the second class comfortably lazed out in the first class…it so appears that after the fares have been paid…the ship crew don’t bother to chase away the people from the first class. Since I couldn’t sit on the wooden seats I resorted to hang at the deck throughout the 3 hour trip.

Walking on the ship requires no tact-just hold somewhere…having consumed your beers at the bar…staggering to your seat is taken for the undulating nature of ship walking…everyone walks unstably on this piece of machine except for the rather balanced art walks of the crew. Most people aboard the ship don’t make any effort to shift from their seats…it’s the least pleasure they can afford…the ship blasting head-on into the waves or its slithering on this green sheet is not comfortable watching when you think passionately of death. For me claustrophobia was the greater enemy so being free in all that openness was more reassuring. While I was saying the cowards stayed holed in the cabins, being out here was the extent my cowardice went, having no bravery to stay down there for the whole journey.

This is some heaven…the ship front attacks the waves as they come in varying sizes making the engine grind at moments, making me have the irritating feeling of grating my teeth. Trying my patience as the machine shudders and thrusts upon a sheet of inexplicably dark green water that parries and boils into a combustion of white-green splashes and twirls trailing for over a kilometer behind us…healing into its calmness and lulling into its nature to pound at small canoes with force enough to exert any decisions on them.

Three hours followed where the same happened…the ship moving against wave after wave disintegrating into bursts that reunite after the mass has passed… this was disappointing…what if a whale was to swim along us competitively…why doesn’t that canoe seesawing in the distance just call out for help so we can tow it…why isn’t anything happening in this space…the same drone of the engine…umeme says there is not enough water in the lake…what about all this water we are thrusting our way through…its idle on the waters…let me go and get me something to eat…

The ship canteen is one expensive place unless you resort to tea which cost 300 shillings, water 800, soda 1000, not many people are eating…perhaps they finished eating. Below deck is uncomfortable…this is where you feel the ship moving, feel it kind of sway, feel its thud race along your nerves like when your taxi from Bukoto Road passes through a back road around mulago hill, and look at homesick faces of people cuddled on their seats wrapped in their jackets or peering through the round windows at the calm distance passing by.

The engine room is different…imagine standing just above a dam looking onto the water struggling below…here, its only three metres down…and I am enjoying this…staring at the mass of thundering water leaves one contemplating nothing…the foam…the mingled exchange of green and white…the monotonously drone churning a continuously explosion…this is what people holed in the cabin cannot dare to look at…its creepy…its madness…I feel like being part of that confusion…I am part of it...The anchor weighs 225 kgs and looks quite light for this big machine...at the back/engine room...it feels different...its like the ship is slugging...not moving at all...a few people peep around the door to the room but make no effort to come in...not after seeing that beyond me is just water at waist level boiling riotously...

The beach as we get to the landing

Back on the deck, the crew point out a long stretch of dark green land and say that's where we are headed...its a beautiful sight with light green patches marking savannal like grazing land, the dark green that mostly covers the long island is the forest, and the white lining at the water edge is the beach...white sands...It takes us about 30 minutes to reach the place...and people have already gathered to welcome us. From a distance you see them, you can see they are debating many oddities about the ship...why does it have to curve wide a way from its destination then curve back to orient itself with the landing plateform...jeez, today it has carried few cars...look at that white woman aiming to take our photograph... I one day want to cross on that ship to Entebbe...

I am engrossed in just about different thoughts...why is there no one at the beaches....Man, those beaches look so pristine and delicate...are there any buildings hidden in those dense forests I am looking at....where I am I going to forge sleep this night...Its 5pm...Kampala is three hours away...there is now a jam to my place…the people holed in a particular taxi are giving the driver awkward advice on how to maneuver out of the jam...td is now chatting away on messenger...chuckling as he types away at the IM aimed at irking someone…

more images on kalangala album above

pictures of ship being built