The trip to Kazinga already started wrong, in the night before, with the guys kind of fighting about something.
We suppose to wake up at seven, leave the house at eight, and hit Kazinga at nine because then we would have enough time to not rush and see at least two sights. But I am the first one to get up at 7.20 a.m., we hit Kasese at nine, have to wait for the breakfast until after 10 o’clock, and hit Kazinga probably after midday. I was already pissed off. We already had spent a lot of money just with breakfast and transport.
Once in there, everything goes different of the simple plan K. had explained to us before. We should walk around a little, talk with some fishermen and try to get a ride in one boat to see some hippopotamus and crocodiles. But there is a huge “organization” (more like a scheme, really) between the tourist guides and the fishermen (who could not answer to us without accepting their orders). So they are charging us a fortune just for a ride of one hour in a boat. Which would stay at the harbor the whole day, doing nothing, if it was not for us.
The guys get hungry soon so we walk to a restaurant, not before buying some bread, thinking of a future snack. At the restaurant, the prices are similar to those in a hotel here in Kasese, so the guys just get some Pocho, Matoke and rice with beans. Funny thing happened with the beer they ordered. They would share so the waitress supposedly should bring a glass. But according to her, the owner is a Muslin man, who does not want the people drinking beer in the glasses. What? Yeah. It was OK selling the beer but using his glasses to drink no. Luckily, she told us that before opening the bottle, so the guys simply said they would not take it. Now the problem was another: since they buy the bottle from another place (What a fuck?!), meaning they do not have their own storage of beer (maybe because the Muslin stuff), so they could not simply “put it back”. They could keep it and wait until a next costumer come and order a beer. After a couple of minutes we had our glass.
D. and I are not accepting to pay but K. says he would pay and that is it. We take the boat. The first group of hippos we find it is more apprehensive because they have a baby with them, so we do not get that close. But within the second one, maybe just adults, they are showing up and do not care about us, so we get kind of close and they are coming out of the water. We get some good photos! The fishermen say that usually the lions come in that area to drink some water. Of course I wish we could stay and wait for them but unfortunately we could not: the fishermen could not leave us over there alone and pick up us later because it would be too danger (I still do not know what they would be able to do that we would not! Maybe everyone just run into the boat and we leave) but if they had stayed, they would charge more. So after over an hour we come back. By the way, it is a calm river but a small boat and even so I did not get sea (river) sick.
K. want to go back home. I am not happy at all coming there just for that. I mean, I loved the hippos but definitely it was too much money. There is this another option, another fish village with some salt mines. We see a truck coming and decide to do hitchhiking. The guy stops and he is going until where we need. So inside the truck we talk and the place suppose to be in the middle of the way to Kasese. The guys planned about how much time we would spend and around what time come back and it is fine. But then, the truck driver suddenly has to stop and would have to wait for a long time for someone. There we go, back to the beginning again. I buy some peanuts while K. talk with the guys from the buses. At the end, would be too expensive to get in there. So let’s just come back to Kasese and have some beers.
We have three Niles each. That it is in the Ururu 50 Hotel, so at the end would pay over four thousand less (the boda-bodas for example) if we just had bought the beers somewhere else and come home. But the guys want a place to chill.
As usual, we have our deep conversations about some big subject. This time it is about money. To resume, my point it was: the money we invest in space research (billions of Dollars), should be simply used to help and feed every single human being in the planet, who are dying now because absence of food and not just wait to see if we can find something useful to the future in the space, or not even (and the guys agree with me in that) looking for something like that, since most of the people who invest time and money in that kind of research, are just curious about our origins and the mysteries of the Universe; I believe if we blow up the whole monetary system, something good could come from that; and I never will accept or get it why there some billionaire (or even more) people, while so many have simply nothing. They both are against every one of those theories and D. keep saying that some of those billionaires invested in some good sustainable project and help a lot of people, always thinking on the future. And because of that they can keep their fortunes remained? No. There are no excuses for that.
At the end we are already kind of drunk and I remember getingt upset with D. (and now remembered again, even more) when he ask me, in sounds of accusation, what I was doing to help the people and the planet because he was running out with his Eco Project. I do not remember exactly what I answered but I know it was not a good answer. I have some ones now: I am helping him with his project; my plans are keeping doing volunteer work, and it does not matter which kind is it, is a way to help those people who cannot afford pay for minions or teachers or whatever, and also keeps me out of the monetary system; maybe it is not that much, but compeering with what I have in life right now (almost nothing) it is a lot. So I can put my head in the pillow at night and sleep very well and not feel guilty for having billions and more amounts of money in my bank accountant, while so many people in the world are dying of hunger in that same night.
Because of the beers, I thought that maybe something could happened between me and D. that night. Luckily, when we get at home, they just prepared their stuff and left. Now I do not know if I dreamed or if it was for real that I heard D. yelling while they were leaving: “Goodbye, Lei! We love you!”