Ssese Bonding

Last weekend, 14 of us from Gulu and Kampala traveled to the Ssese Island of Kalangala, a three hour ferry journey into the middle of Lake Victoria. Lots of bonding occurred, which got me thinking about group bonding and friendships. I have always perceived my friendship MO as being a person with lots of friends from different groups. It wasn’t until I was 32 that I realized I had a tight-knit “posse.” My Vassar friends and I have been friends since we were 18, yet we didn’t really realize it until one of our friend’s mom became quite sick. I remember the moment well. We gathered on my rooftop in the East Village in the early evening and declared our love for each other. 14 years after our friendship began. Admittedly, my Vassar group of 8 is a bit quirky that way.

For the first time since I arrived in Gulu nearly three years ago, I had a sense of belonging to a clique of friends. I mean this in a good way. As I have written, most ex-pats in Gulu get along pretty well, but the relationships are fairly superficial for no other reason than because the population is quite transient. Last weekend’s journey to Ssese brought some new and old friends together, and we emerged bonded and in love. When we reached the ferry port upon return to Entebbe, we quickly made plans to stay at the same hotel and for those in Kampala to come racing to the hotel just as soon as they dropped their bags so that we could hang together at the pool. As we reluctantly fanned out to board different taxis back to Kampala, desperate hugs were thrown and hasty dinner plans were made.

The island itself was ok. Beautiful, but missing something. Our hotel was kind of basic, but more or less provided acceptable food and enough booze (supplemented by various bottles brought, including the crowd favorite Black Mischief “rum.”) It rained a lot which literally and figuratively dampened things. Also, we couldn’t enter the very tempting waters of Lake Victoria, because of crocodile and bilharzia fears. The town center, up the hill from the coast, was sparsely developed and purchasing even a bottle of water took a lot of time and energy. Although we did meet a charming woman who kept bees and ran the island’s craft shop. And we did stumble upon the island’s Pentecostal church and learned much about the do’s and don’ts of avoiding Satan.

We frolicked, played games and drank heavily, but without too much embarrassment. Secrets were revealed, but without too much drama. We had our favorite guy to tease and to entertain us, Simon, and we had just enough of a gender balance to keep things interesting, but without too much scandal. We talked about serious things regarding life and love and we spent a lot of time laughing.

One never knows how group weekends like this will go. In fact, it could have been a nightmare. Some friends left from Gulu at 5am and we didn’t reach the island until dark the same day, which could have caused some grumpiness. Our hotel claimed it hadn’t received our down payment. Surely these are recipes for short tempers, but none were detected. As I mentioned, some people were meeting for the first time. But I think the commonality of ex-pat life in Uganda was a strong link. It was a very smart group of people who are all fairly successful and hardworking professionals. We could giggle intensely in the grips of Black Mischief and we could speak earnestly about the damage the island’s new palm oil plant will eventually cause.

Six of us drove back to Gulu together on Monday. From what I heard, most of those who remained in Kampala met again on Monday for dinner. We six were about an hour out of Gulu when we passed a sign for a new lodge being built on the Nile. We decided that despite the long travels we wanted to go check it out. Together. As a group. As the splendid structure came into view, we knew we had found a new venue for our group bonding. It was perfect and only about an hour from Gulu. Our Kampala friends wouldn’t mind, because the location was so spectacular and besides, the Gulu-Kampala road is much improved.